Notes: Thursday, December 9, 2010

1. "Princess Di's relative on sainthood path"

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=24452

2. Sr. Pilcher on Australia's dying congregations of religious

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=24443

3. "MORE than half of Canberra's lesbian and bisexual women surveyed report having been in an abusive relationship"

http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com/2010/12/symptoms-of-disordered-life.html

4. Mr. Muehlenberg and Ms Kirkman on polyamory

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/12/08/three-cheers-for-group-sex/

Reginaldvs Cantvar
9.XII.2010

Notes: Tuesday-Wednesday, December 7-8, 2010

1. "Fire wardens be alarmed - you could get burnt"

Until recently the Australian Standard for emergency evacuation procedures - the ''best practice'' guide for all Australian workplaces - contained an explicit exemption from liability for the wardens, as long as they ''acted in good faith''.

But under changes announced in the past two weeks, the exemption is gone, replaced by a warning that employers and building owners should seek legal advice about the level of indemnity their fire wardens face.

The warning also applies to the members of emergency procedure committees - those charged with making sure the different evacuation plans of companies in large office blocks are consistent.
[http://www.smh.com.au/national/fire-wardens-be-alarmed--you-could-get-burnt-20101207-18ofy.html?skin=text-only]

2. "Bridle on outspoken charities was wrong"

A High Court decision last week provided a big win for charities, and another big loss for the Tax Commissioner. At issue was whether an organisation can retain its charitable status and tax benefits while engaging in political debate. The High Court held that it could. ...
[http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/bridle-on-outspoken-charities-was-wrong-20101206-18mpd.html?skin=text-only]

3. A Supreme Court decision about which I had not heard

Peter Saul, a senior intensive care specialist at John Hunter Hospital and the director of the clinical unit in ethics and health law at the University of Newcastle, said doctors and administrators had been forced to focus on the rights of dying patients by a Supreme Court decision last year.

Justice Robert McDougall ruled a Jehovah's Witness's written refusal of a blood transfusion had to be honoured even after he became unconscious, and that any advance care directive must be respected if it was ''made by a capable adult, and clear and unambiguous''.

Dr Saul said doctors would now be on "unsafe ground if they completely ignored [a directive], leaving themselves open to a charge [they] assaulted the patient''.
[square-bracketed interpolations in the original,
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/dying-want-their-final-wishes-respected-20101206-18mxu.html?skin=text-only]

3. Prof. Hastings on Catholicism and Nazism

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35017

4. "Terra" on "[t]he collapse of religious life"

http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com/2010/12/collapse-of-religious-life-why-did-it.html

5. Some figures on American Catholics and use of contraception

Studies suggest Catholic couples who use natural family planning, as directed in 1968 by Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, are in the vast minority. Estimates based on a 2006-2008 study by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that Catholic women were, essentially, just as likely as others to use some form of contraception, according to statistician William Mosher.

The nationwide estimate for women who use contraceptives was 61.9 percent overall, compared to 61.6 percent of women who identified themselves as Catholic. Based on the study, Mosher estimated that natural family planning is used by two out of 1,000 Catholic women in the country.
[http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=24410]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, A.D. 2010

Notes: Saturday-Monday, November 13-15, 2010

1. Figures on Catholic religious in Australia today

http://www.smh.com.au/national/down-but-not-out-catholic-orders-shrink-by-half-but-energy-unchanged-20101112-17r78.html?skin=text-only

Main points from the article (which CathNews featured):

• There were 8422 "religious personnel" (including retired religious) in Australia in 2009, down from 17029 in 1976.
• "The median age is 73, and only 8.2 per cent are aged under 50, whereas 26.6 per cent are aged 80 or more."
• "Three-quarters of all religious came from Australia and the rest came from 75 different nations, with Ireland, New Zealand and Vietnam the greatest source countries."
• "[T]he tradition of being taught by a nun or a brother in a Catholic school belongs mostly to previous generations. While 48 per cent of the religious worked in education in 1976, that cohort has shrunk to 12 per cent, as lay-people have taken over Catholic education."
• Despite the decline in membership, "40 congregations out of 109 said they were ''not contemplating change''".

2. Figures on whether a sample of Australians agreed or disagreed with the following statements: "Homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt children", "I believe homosexuality is immoral", "I consider myself a homosexual"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/country-divided-as-support-for-gay-marriage-varies-wildly-20101114-17sq4.html?skin=text-only
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-tricky-political-topography-of-samesex-marriage-20101115-17t6y.html?skin=text-only

Neither the descriptive report nor its analysis focus on the figure which I regard as the most remarkable: Only 3% of Australians identify as homosexual. (Terra has more on this.)

3. Mr. Rowney on the philosphical distinction between intended consequences and merely foreseen ones

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=24169

I was surprised to see Mr. Rowney write that

Even utilitarians need to decide where they stand on this one. Do they side with Hume and Mill on the Aristotelian side or with Sidgwick, Adams, Singer and the Consequentialists on the other?

since I thought that utilitarianism was an inherently consequentialist moral philosophy.

4. Dr. Jones (responding to Msgr. Williamson) on the teachings of Vatican II

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34678

I disagree with Dr. Jones's conclusions, but I was interested to read the following:

John Courtney [sic] Murray ... was working for Henry Luce’s Time/Life empire, which had intimate connections with the CIA. [That story] will appear in the pages of Culture Wars and a forthcoming book by David Wemhoff.

5. Another benefit of which male same-sex couples deprive their respective children

From a letter by Mrs. Babette Francis in The Australian today:

... the significance of breastfeeding in early education should not be overlooked.

During breastfeeding, an infant's eyes focus on its mother's face and it learns from her "baby-talk" and conversation, whereas bottle-fed babies look away from the mother towards the bottle, and are sometimes propped up with pillows with no adult holding the bottle. ...
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/breast-versus-bottle/comments-fn558imw-1225953455135]

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Albert the Great, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2010