Notes: Wednesday, June 26-Monday, August 5, 2013 (part 1 of 2)

1. A couple of recent items regarding Australian foreign policy and Feminism, abortion, and contraception

1.1 What AusAID's Feminism-abortion-contraception training programmes look like

See the article "Ladies dispense tough justice", by Rosemary Neill, dated June 29, 2013, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/ladies-dispense-tough-justice/story-e6frg6z6-1226671595465

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 24 of the "INQUIRER" section of The Weekend Australian, June 29-30, 2013, First Edition, No. 15153, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited.)

See also item 12 of this Notes post and item 1 of this Notes post.

Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism

1.2 Mr.—now Sen.—Carr "makes his case for … Australian foreign aid tied to population control policies."

At the end of last year, I logged, in item 7 of this Notes post, Sen. The Hon. Bob Carr, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, writing that

On the Security Council we'll be working for the rights of women and girls - to education, training and jobs, and to maternal and reproductive healthcare. Its what we're already doing in Myanmar, Indonesia and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific.

The following quotation—Sen. Carr's answer, presumably in late 1999 or early 2000 (when Sen. Carr was The Hon. Bob Carr M.P., Premier of New South Wales), to an interview question—might shed some light on Sen. Carr's motives for that work:

Well, all our foreign aid has got to be made dependent on population control policies in these countries[, i.e., "Third World" countries] and on the empowerment of women. The most useful nexus here is the empowerment of women, their empowerment through legal rights, legal entitlements and education. That's the indicator that most effectively curbs population, and we've got to think about this. We are all citizens of this planet, there is no other planet and NSW is not a region of the Federal Republic of Mars. State leaders are quite entitled to discuss global warming because in the end it affects us all.
[bold type in the original (the interview answers were in bold, the questions not in bold), my interpolation,
interview "populate & perish?", with The Hon. Bob Carr M.P., Premier of New South Wales, downloaded from The University of Sydney's Work and Organisational Studies' "workSite" ("issues in workplace relations") website:
http://worksite.econ.usyd.edu.au/carr.html]

(That interview came to my attention via the Cut & Paste installment "Robert No Headline Carr does a tedious dance before creating a Cut & Paste headline", dated April 15, 2013, downloaded from (behind the paywall at) The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cut-paste/robert-no-headline-carr-does-a-tedious-dance-before-creating-a-cut-paste-headline/story-fn72xczz-1226620292926)

Labels: abortion, contraception, feminism

2. "In NSW more than 50 per cent of school-age Catholics at-tend non-Catholic schools"

The quotation, including all the dashes (the second of them resulted from the word "attend" spanning two lines), in that headline comes from the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (Archdiocese of Sydney) Noticeboard article "80 attend Northern Mass", no byline, p. 32 (the "Classifieds, What's on and CCD Noticeboard" page), the Sydney Catholic Weekly, Vol. 72, No. 4679, published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.) (That article is apparently not available online.)

Labels: Catholic schools, education

3. "Ms Plibsersek said two drugs used to terminate pregnancy for medical reasons would also be available through the PBS[ the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme] from 1 August 2013"; those drugs, namely "Mifepristone (Linepharma®) and misoprostol (GyMiso200®)[,] will be subsidised for medical terminations up to 49 days of gestation."

The quotations, excluding my square-bracketed interpolations, in that headline come from the Ministerial media release "New Generation Medicines Added to the PBS", dated June 30, 2013, downloaded from the Ministerial subsite of the Federal Department of Health and Ageing's website:

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr13-tp-tp068.htm

(The Minister in question is the Minister for Health, The Hon. Tanya Plibersek M.P. (who is also the Minister for Medical Research).) See also the article "Julia Gillard's cut-price abortion drug as RU486 slashed to $12", by Samantha Maiden, dated June 30, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/julia-gillards-cut-price-abortion-drug-as-ru486-slashed-to-12/story-fni0cx12-1226671939686

(That article came to my attention via this blog post by Miss Edwards.) See also the article "‘Horror’ at RU486 move", by Damir Govorcin, dated July 3, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Catholic Weekly's website:

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=1&subclassID=2&articleID=12397&class=News&subclass=CW National

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 2 of The Catholic Weekly, July 7, 2013, Vol. 72, No. 4680, published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.)

Labels: abortion, RU486

4. "Kasper Admits Intentional Ambiguity" (in Vatican II's documents)

The quotation in that headline is the headline of a blog post by Boniface, dated Sunday, April 14, 2013, downloaded from the Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog:

http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2013/04/kasper-admits-intentional-ambiguity.html

(That post came to my attention via this AQ post.)

Labels: Vatican II, Walter Kasper

5. "The percentage of wives having affairs rose almost 40 percent during the last two decades to 14.7 percent in 2010, while the number of men admitting to extramarital affairs held constant at 21 percent, according to the latest data from the National Opinion Research Centre's General Social Survey."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "In US, cheating is not just for husbands anymore", by Frank Bass, dated July 2, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/in-us-cheating-is-not-just-for-husbands-anymore-20130702-2p971.html?skin=text-only

Labels: adultery, marriage, social trends, vice

6. Sydney's "Archbishop[ Michael] Kelly had been created count of the Holy Roman Empire and assistant at the Pontifical Throne in 1926."

The quotation, excluding my square-bracketed interpolation, in that headline comes from the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry "Kelly, Michael (1850–1940)", by Patrick O'Farrell:

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-michael-6920

(Msgr. Kelly's creation as Count of the Holy Roman Empire came to my attention via a photo caption in this Catholica post.)

Labels: Holy Roman Empire

7. A couple of recent items regarding the Australian Defence Force

7.1 "THE person behind the stirring speech delivered by army chief Lieutenant General David Morrison in the wake of shocking revelations about an army email sex ring was his transgender speechwriter, Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor."

The quotation, including its bold type (it was the first paragraph of an article), in that headline comes from the article "Transgender Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor speaks out about abuse and support", by Ian McPhedran, dated July 5, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Daily Telegraph's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/transgender-lieutenant-colonel-cate-mcgregor-speaks-out-about-abuse-and-support/story-fni0xqrc-1226674523255

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the headline "Courage and true defence of choice", with the same byline, on p. 25 of The Daily Telegraph, Friday, July 5, 2013, Vol 1, No. 2891, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd.)

See also the blog post "Some jokers are real", by Mr. Bernard Gaynor, dated July 20, 2013, downloaded from his website:

http://bernardgaynor.com.au/some-jokers-are-real/

Labels: A.D.F.

7.2 (More from) Mr. Gaynor on the Australian Defence Force

See the blog post "What I note about the Australian Defence Force", by Mr. Bernard Gaynor, dated June 28, 2013, downloaded from his website:

http://bernardgaynor.com.au/what-i-note-about-the-australian-defence-force/

(That post came to my attention via this True Catholic thread.)

Labels: A.D.F.

8. Mr. Parrett and Prof. Williams on 'separation of Church and State' in Australia

See the letter which was published under the heading "Education funding: Separation of Church and state", by Mr. Colliss Parrett, dated July 3, 2013, downloaded from the Sydney Catholic Weekly's website:

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=2&subclassID=5&articleID=12404&class=Comment&subclass=Letters

(That letter came to my attention via the version published under the same heading and by the same author on p. 8 of The Catholic Weekly, Vol. 72, No. 4680, published by the Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd.)

See also the opinion piece "Nation's very foundation built on right to choose own god", by Prof. George Williams, dated July 16, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website, in which Prof. Williams writes that

Australian law establishes a separation between church and state, and provides for religious choice. However, the regime is not complete. The constitutional protections say nothing about the states, which remain free to prefer one religion over another, and can ban the employment of people based upon their beliefs.
[http://www.smh.com.au/comment/nations-very-foundation-built-on-right-to-choose-own-god-20130715-2q05e.html?skin=text-only]

(But see, again, Mr. Parrett's letter, and also Dr. Zankin's letter, headed "Christianity holds sway until we become republic", published on the Herald's letters page of July 17, 2013 (headlined "Rudd, Abbott both fail on real action on climate change").)

Labels: Church and State, law, Constitution

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of The Dedication of Our Lady of the Snows', A.D. 2013

Notes: Friday, July 2, 2010

Mr. Croome and Mr. Raj on so-called gay marriage

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/australia-lags-shamefully-on-gay-marriage-20100701-zqia.html?skin=text-only
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/new-pm-same-old-stance-on-gay-marriage/

Both these opinion pieces are rubbish, but both are worth highlighting, Mr. Raj's because it provides a useful summary of the standard (fallacious) arguments for 'gay marriage', and Mr. Croome's because it's good for a laugh: He begins by considering some reasons why The Hon. Julia Gillard M.P. might have a 'personal view', as has been reported, against gay marriage, one of which is the following astounding non sequitur:

She has no children, so it can't be because she believes there's an obligatory link between procreation and the right to marry.

Did it not occur to Mr. Croome that the link between marriage and procreation might be precisely why Ms Gillard has neither married nor procreated? Whether it's a matter of not wanting to marry because there would be an obligation to have children, or not wanting to have children because it would entail an obligation to marry, either way, there's clearly no reason inherent in the condition of childlessness to think that the childless reject an obligatory link between marriage and children. Quite the contrary, in fact--a desire not to marry might be precisely why they haven't had children.

And I was interested to learn the following:

["[M]arriage equality advocates"] have asked the Icelandic Prime Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, who married her same-sex partner a few days ago, to explain to Gillard why marriage equality is so important to same-sex couples and their families, and to a just society.

The Icelandic leader would also do well to ask Gillard if the Australian government will officially recognise her wife, should the couple visit Australia, and, if so, why that recognition can't be extended to the hundreds of Australian same-sex couples who are also legally married overseas.

Ha! What a sight that would be! Mr. Croome goes on to ponder why Ms Gillard might be personally opposed to gay marriage:

Perhaps she believes the overreaching claims of Pentecostal pastors about the influence of their mega-churches in key marginal seats. Perhaps she owes something to those right-wing Catholic MPs who are, in turn, under the unhealthy influence of Rome. Perhaps she simply wants to convince voters that she is a leader of conviction, even when she knows those convictions are wrong.

Perhaps Mr. Croome's intellect is under the unhealthy influence of Sodom, because it seems not to have occured to him that marriage, in any sense of the word, is the uniting of two complementary parts into a whole, that in marriage, in the sense of matrimony, the complementarity is primarily sexual (not merely semi- or quasi-sexual), and that, since two persons of the same sex have no sexual complementarity, then just as an opposite-sex couple in which at least one member is relatively or absolutely impotent cannot have matrimony, neither can a same-sex couple have matrimony. Could it be that Ms Gillard is, her atheism notwithstanding, clear-minded enough to recognise this, and hence she is opposed to so-called gay marriage?

Link to an on-line transcription of the 1859 Haydock Bible commentary:

http://haydock1859.tripod.com/index.html
(Discovered here: http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=367400#367400)

A couple of observations regarding the recent Roman Curial appointments

From LifeSiteNews via AQ:

In his seventh year as a Cardinal and at age 66, Cardinal Ouellet still has at least 9 more years to be in a prominent role of service to the Church (official retirement age is 75). His appointment as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops comes at an especially opportune time given that nine of the 19 Latin Rite bishops in his home province of Quebec are set to retire in the next two years. And within that number are four of the five most powerful posts or 'metropolitan sees' as they are known.

Quebec's bishops, with the current exception of Cardinal Ouellet and perhaps one or two others, are known to be the principal force behind the spread of damaging liberalism throughout the Church in Canada - a situation many hope will change with the appointment of Cardinal Ouellet to head the Pope's 'bishop selection committee.'
[http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32324]

From Dr. Brown at Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog:

If the cardinal cannot appoint orthodox staff to his own seminary, I have no idea how he is going to appoint orthodox bishops to the universal Church.
Comment by Deimater

He won’t because it will not be his job. Bishops are nominated by the pope. Of course, the Prefect does have power, and there was a difference between the Congregation run by Gantin. On the other hand, the nominations are the result of a complex process involving the Prefect, the Sec (who seems to be a Re clone), the members, the nunzio, and certain powerful members of a nation’s episcopacy.

IMHO, of equal importance is that another Sodano ally is out of power. When BXVI became pope, Sodano was Sec of State, Sandri the Sostituto, and Re was at Bishops. That made it possible to frustrate whatever BXVI wanted to do.

Comment by robtbrown — 1 July 2010 @ 8:19 am
[bold type in the original,
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/06/important-appointments-made-by-pope-benedict/#comment-212584]

Mr. Obeid refutes some of the standard Fundamentalist objections to Catholic beliefs and practices

http://davidobeid.blogspot.com/2010/07/reply-to-onesimus.html

H.H. The Pope appoints The Lord Bishop of Basel as President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

From today's Vatican Information Service daily e-mail bulletin:

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 1 JUL 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Bishop Kurt Koch of Basel, Switzerland, as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, he succeeds Cardinal Walter Kasper whose resignation from the same office the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.
NA/ VIS 20100701 (60)

A couple of blog comments by me:

At "For the Sake of Science", by Mr. Michael Hawkins: I just couldn't resist making this comment:

Cardinal Pole, on July 1, 2010 at 2:08 pm Said:

“No new data is gained from logic.”

No new data are gained from grammar, either.
[http://forthesakeofscience.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/thought-of-the-day-126/#comment-5889]

which I published after my introductory comment:

Cardinal Pole, on July 1, 2010 at 2:07 pm Said:

Hello Mr. Hawkins, I came across your blog while looking for a transcript of the comment by Ms Gillard which you’ve quoted here.

I’m trying to work out why you support same-sex marriage. (Naturally I checked your “gay marriage” and “Same-sex marriage” labels first, but they contained links to posts from other blogs; I also skim-read your blog’s first page, to no avail.) Could you explain why, or direct me to a post where you do so? I can understand how, as an atheist/anti-theist, you would see no moral reason to oppose it (no higher being than man => no such thing as true and proper moral obligation, no natural law, &c.), but there would still be the logical reasons (following from the definition of marriage, in its most general sense, as the uniting of two complementary parts into a whole, with marriage in the particular sense of matrimony involving sexual complementarity) .

(I’ll be back on Monday night, Australian time.)
[http://forthesakeofscience.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/gillard-is-against-gay-marriage/#comment-5888]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of the Visitation of The Blessed Virgin Mary, A.D. 2010