Inching Their Way To The Truth

I suppose I should use the metric system rather than the Imperial, not because the metric is modern, but because a millimetre is much smaller than an inch, and because Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial to those who died in the Nazi holocaust, have only moved a millimetre in response to the now overwhelming evidence that proves that the black legend about Pope Pius XII is not true.

Those curating the exhibition in the memorial have revised the part of the exhibit dealing with Pius and the controversy surrounding his wartime record.  But the exhibit is still factually misleading and untrue, relying on ideological criticisms rather than actual historical evidence.  They need to listen to fellow Jew Gary Krupp of the Pave the Way Foundation, but so far they are resisting.  But at least, I suppose, even though it is a tiny move, it is a move in the right direction.

Personally I believe this issue will become like the Crusades, the Inquisition and the witch-burnings.  Genuine scholars will know the truth, write about it and present the complex reality which is very different from the biased history popular writers and ideologues peddle, but most people will not know the truth and take for granted that the black legends are true.

So the Holy Father should just go ahead and beatify Pius.  The Vatican conducted its own meticulous research, delaying the promulgation of the decree of heroic virtue for two years in case any of the accusations might happen to be true.  The records dealing with the Pontiff's wartime years will be available soon - the cataloguing is almost complete and then scholars can go in and research as much as they like.  I wonder, will the most vociferous of Pius's critics revise their opinion when (if??) they go in to examine the documents, or will they just claim that the Vatican is hiding the real evidence?  And then will there be more books?  Nothing sells books like good old Vatican cover ups be they real or imaginary. 

And as they peddle the lies about Pius, the world ignores the horrors which are taking place today, and this has to be one of the most awful: genetically modified people.  Yes, I'm not talking about GM foods here - they have moved on to people.  According to the Daily Mail thirty genetically modified babies have been born - thirty healthy babies - I'm sure the body count is higher than that as scientists worked to perfect the process.

Two of these GM babies have genes from three parents - two women and a man!  I would echo the words of John Smeaton of SPUC who said: "'One has tremendous sympathy for couples who suffer infertility problems. But this seems to be a further illustration of the fact that the whole process of in vitro fertilisation as a means of conceiving babies leads to babies being regarded as objects on a production line."  Indeed worse than that: scientists, people, now think they are masters of life, that they can create human beings according to they want them to be, their traits, their looks, their ablities.  This will ultimately enslave humanity to the will of the strong.  Where have we heard ideas like that before? 

I think people need to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein which deals with the whole issue of man trying to create life - it causes more problems that it solves.

More On IVF

A quick post before I go out to offer the Vigil Mass for the Solemnity of St Patrick.  I found this article on the net, written by a man who with his wife, submitted to IVF.  It's not an easy read, but this is part of the procedure for many.  As he laments the loss of two, he does not mention the others who were conceived and then died or are now frozen.

Please note, pro-abortion people, abortion is not painless for the child: in most cases the child endures dreadful torture before it dies.

In Brief

A busy couple of days.  I have Fr Mark Kirby and Br Benedict staying with me as they prepare to found their new Priory in our diocese - not far from here, in Stamullen.  You can catch up on the latest news on Fr Mark's blog, Vultus Christi, which is always an inspiring read.  Please keep the community and the new foundation in your prayers. 

Personally speaking, it is wonderful having them here as they bring the Benedictine life and horarium to the presbytery and it's like being back in community again.  Living on my own, it is also great to have the company of brothers in the faith.  Hilda the dog arrives tomorrow, so that will bring another dimension to life in the house! 

This quick post is to bring an excellent article to your attention.  IVF is all the talk at the moment as the Holy Father addressed the issue recently.  I wrote a post a few days ago and got an interesting reaction - one which saw IVF as okay because the end result made people happy.  Of course as Christians we know that the ends can never justify the means: we cannot do an evil thing in the hope of achieving good.  But secular society does not believe it - it is consequentialist - it judges moral actions by their outcome rather than by their moral status.  In such thinking there is no such thing as an action being intrinsically evil.  This is pure relativism and leads many astray.

The article is on multiple births: when supply exceeds demand - a common feature of IVF where 'surplus' embryos are discarded, frozen or experimented on.  And of course in recent times we have seen the growing practice of selective reduction in which 'surplus' babies are aborted to make room for the one chosen to live.  It is all barbaric and undermines the belief that society is progressing - we're not, we're regressing.  In our age human beings have become more brutal, less considerate and more selfish than people in the previous centuries.   Welcome to the real Dark Ages! 

Another Patron For The Cause Of Life

Speaking of Saints and future Saints in recent days, I see the Cause of Jerome Lejeune is progressing: the diocesan phase has been completed and the documents are to be sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and, I presume, the Postulator will begin to write the positio, the position document which will summarise his life and virtues and propose him as a candidate for beatification.

As the assault on life seems to gain momentum, God is giving us patrons and models to help us in our struggle to witness to the Gospel of Life.  St Gianna Beretta Molla has been canonised, and now Jerome who was a great defender of life is on his way.  Lejeune was a paediatrician and geneticist - he is best known for his discovery of Trisomy 21 which is the cause of Down Syndrome.  A discovery, which should have helped humanity became, in the hands of the anti-life brigade, a weapon to destroy life.  Following his discovery, Dr Lejeune had to defend the unborn, and particularly those who Down Syndrome, from abortion.

A friend of Blessed John Paul II, Lejeune assisted him in the cause of life and was appointed President of newly founded Pontifical Academy for Life, but only served for a few months as lung cancer claimed his life on Easter Sunday 1994.    We pray for a speedy outcome to the Cause, the granting of a miracle and the joy of his beatification soon. 

In related news, the Holy Father has urged Catholics to shun artificial methods of procreation - that means IVF, AI and surrogacy.  These methods are deeply sinful and denigrate the act of procreation, and the life and dignity of the child. 

With regard to IVF alone there are so many moral problems with it it is a veritable nightmare.  Unfortunately many Catholics are so desperate to have a child that they resort to this evil and in doing so allow the creation and destruction of many children.  The awful statistic is that for every live birth in IVF around thirty children have perished - this does not include the children who are suspended in freezing facilities, most of them forgotten: they are alive, but "on hold" - not even able to die so they can be released.   

Another problem with this method is that those who are using it close their hearts to the truth - they deny that it is wrong, or if they know its wrong, they are prepared to suspend their consciences and God's law to get their child.  This is serious as it places those souls in immortal peril.  I have even heard of Catholic priests encouraging couples to go down the road of IVF, telling them that it is not a sin to do so.  God forgive these priests - they are leading souls into sin: if they do not repent of this and try to undo the damage they have done, they may well be damned.

We certainly need the prayers and example of the Servant of God, Jerome Lejeune: through his intercession may the Lord bring us out of this Dark Age into the light of the Gospel of Life, where human life is cherished and protected.

The Living Tomb: storage tank in which children conceived through IVF are frozen.

They Follow The Lamb

Our feast today, I think, is one of the most poignant in the Church's calendar - the feast of the Holy Innocents.  The liturgy is very beautiful as it honours the little boys who knew nothing of the world, never mind the Lord who created them.  And yet, in this innocence, before some of them could speak, they are murdered - put to death in the place of Christ. 

In his reflection for the feast, St Quodvultdeus says that they were taken to be Jesus Christ, and what a grace: there is the programme for our lives: to seek to resemble Jesus Christ, to be taken for him, mistaken for him.  That is why we are called Christians - so we might be Christ.  As St Paul puts it: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me".   One of the wonderful images the liturgy offers us today sums it all up beautifully: they follow the lamb.  As little children, they skip along behind him.  I pray we might all be able to do the same.

Today is, of course, a day to remember all the Innocents who have be slaughtered.  Those who have been abused.  But also those who have perished in the culture of death: the aborted, those killed in the procedures like IVF and embryonic stem cell research, those who die unknown thanks to the Morning After Pill. Lives deemed worthless and so discarded.  It is also a day to remember the millions of children who lie frozen in fertility clinics all over the world - suspended, neither allowed to live or die.  What horrors the people of this time have visited upon our children.  Today's Herods wear white coats, speak with gentle voices in counselling rooms, wield pipettes instead of swords, dispense tablets. 

There are many parallels between the slaughter of the Innocents and the culture of death in our day, but there is one I find most intriguing.  Some scholars dispute the event - they say that there is not one shred of evidence outside St Matthew's Gospel that these little boys of Bethlehem were killed, so they deny it happened - it was made up, a mere literary device to get the Infant Jesus to Egypt.  Well, St Matthew saw fit to record it and to attribute a prophecy to foretell it: it must have happened.  Given that Matthew was writing for Jewish audience, the massacre must have had some significance. 

However, this scholarly attitude parallels that of many today who defend abortion, contraception, IVF etc - they deny that they are wrong, they deny the facts, they will not allow them be known: they even deny the humanity of those who are murdered.    They are living in denial, they are easily offended when the facts are made known and they fight back, their most potent weapon being "feeling hurt".

May our dear little Saints, the Holy Innocents, martyrs for Christ, intercede for us, for the pro-life cause, and for an end to the culture of death.  May they watch over us and guide us in our lives so like them, we too may be taken for Christ, and yes, even have the joy of suffering for him. 

In Memory Of The Lost

You may have seen this article on Zenit, if not, read it - it is very important.  For years IVF has been hailed as a great move forward in treating infertility - thousands of children have been born to childless couples, bringing them great joy and easing the burden and stigma of childlessness. 

The Church, however, has its difficulties with the procedure, and rightly so - it fulfills the prophecy Pope Paul VI uttered in Humane Vitae.  This article shows why the Church has her issues with the procedure.

Some interesting facts:  since 1991 100,000 children have been born of the procedure, out of 3 million children conceived.  Of these children 1.5 million have be discarded during treatment - think about that - 1.5 million children have been thrown out, destroyed by doctors and scientists.  The abuse crisis pales in comparison with that!   And many, many more remain frozen in IVF centres, most of them destined to be destroyed also.  These are human beings we are talking about.

Other interesting facts: one man has fathered 150 children so far through the process.  There are cases of other men fathering 50 or more children.   This means incest is going become an issue in the years ahead, and when siblings marry there are genetic consequences.    As regards those born of so called "sperm donors", while there is no definite figures, there are estimates that there could be as many as 60,000. 

And all of this costs money - people are getting rich through these processes, and that, my friends, seems to make children a commodity - a "product" which is desired and then "made.  As we see now, if the "product" does not fit the bill, then it can be discarded (aka abortion) and another made. 

I have no desire to offend anyone, and certainly not those burdened with infertility, but life is precious, it is a gift, it cannot be made and discarded, subject to the will and whim of another human being.  IVF might seem to solve problems, but it creates even more, and while it may seek to bring the joy of a new life into the lives of loving couples, it does so by killing hundreds of thousands of other lives. 

Here is a very disturbing fact - when you see a child born of IVF, 30 other children were "created" in the procedure that brought this one to birth: where are they?  Dead?  Discarded?  Experimented on?  Frozen?  Do not forget that they too are children. 

If we are supposed to be putting children first, and as the great mantra "Best Practice" is repeated over and over again like a Eastern chant, is it not time to really put children first -  not just install and sign register books in sacristies and hoard forms filled by everything that moves within a mile of a church property??   For years the Church has been silent about IVF for fear of offending those who avail of it - God forbid we catechise!    Time to stop being selective - time to think of children - all children, particularly those who fall victim to the culture of death.