News

Wednesday April 28, 2010


Letters to the Editor

Re: “We Will Not Abandon the Unborn Child”: Calgary Pro-Life Students Threatened with Expulsion

Copy of letter to the interim Dean at the University of Calgary. I fully support the 8 students who are having to endure this –please pass this on to them if you are able.

Dear Dr. Veale,

I am writing to ask you to support our right as Canadians to free speech. I understand that at least eight of the students from the U of C are facing discipline as a result of their convictions to speak for the unborn child. And here I thought that it was only the U of Ottawa who practised such blatant censorship, and as a result, invoked the disdain of the academic world.

Dr. Veale, Canada has NO legislation which protects an unborn child up to when it takes its first breath outside a mother’s body, despite the fact that many weeks before this, that baby is viable. Most countries, (i.e. France) and many states in the U.S. have laws which prevent or deter late term abortion (over 20 weeks) except in special circumstances. Canada has NO legal guidelines regarding this and could benefit greatly from a discussion. I can’t imagine a more compelling issue in this country to bring forward than debate and discussion for students at the university level to be involved in, and thus, potentially engage the nation.

Does it offend or hurt someone’s feelings to see picture of macerated babies? I would hope so. Does it offend people to see the mass graves of the Rwandan people or the Jews in Nazi Germany? Perhaps the butchering and raping of children in Afghanistan or the bloated bodies of those who did not survive the Haitiian earthquake qualify as something we should be “protected” from. Hopefully, you will not ban or censor those “unpleasantries” as well, so that we can pretend these things don’t exist and thus, don’t have to make it our problem.

Awareness is the beginning of dialogue in the academic world and a free world. As an alumni of another University, I am urging you not to practise social engineering and censorship on your campus based on limited, allowable viewpoints. This is the antithesis of academic freedom. The aim of the University should be to encourage their alumni to take seriously the responsibility of their degrees and make a difference in their society and their world, something these students are engaged in and I applaud them for it. I am not necessarily saying I agree with their viewpoint–that is not the issue. What I am agreeing with and advocating for, is their RIGHT TO SAY IT. I am also urging you to allow these students legal counsel to accompany them at such time as you plan to interview them, in order to prevent a justifiable case for the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal/Commission.

J.M Webb, R.N. BSN,

Alberta, Canada

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Re: News Briefs on Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse V

Sr Joan Chittister has written in her columnn in National Catholic Reporter (NCR) about the clerical sex abuse issue. She deplores it – rightly.

However, Sr Joan has written at other times in her column in NCR praising “The Vagina Monologues” and denigrating “morality cops” who seek to have it banned from university campuses, including Catholic universities such as Notre Dame, Indiana, and the “hysteria” of these censorship attempts. [“The reports of feminism’s death have been greatly exaggerated.” NCR, Nov. 8, 2004] She called it “a profoundly tragic, disturbingly funny, revealing play about what it is to be a woman.”

In one of the Vagina monologues, a woman character recalls in glowing terms how as a minor, she was given alcohol by an adult woman, who then performed sexual acts with her. [Note: In earlier versions of the play, she was 13 at the time of the abuse. This was revised after complaints and in later versions she is 16 – still a minor. In the earlier versions the character reminisces wistfully: “If it was rape, it was good rape.” This has been omitted – again after complaints.]

How can someone deplore clerical sexual abuse, yet approve the celebration in drama of the alcohol-assisted rape of a minor by an adult, and attack those who have concerns about this?

Hugh Henry

Victoria, AUSTRALIA


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No to Abortion,

yes to Pedophile…

Is this your new slogan?

You are really a bunch of evil people

J. Fransen

Editor’s Note: LSN does not normally publish emails from persons who are not willing to provide their address. However, it has been published to illustrate the misinformed comments LSN often receives.

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Re: Brazilian Archbishop Defends Abortion for Pregnant Minor in his Diocese

Copy of letter sent to staff of National Conference of Brazilian Bishops:

Dear brothers within the hierarchy of the Church in Brazil,

I was deeply saddened to learn through LifeSiteNews.com about the words of Archbishop Fernando Saburido that the decision to kill an unborn child is “the decision is for the parents, who have all of the freedom to act in the way that they believe to be most convenient.”

This position, as any Catholic aware of his or her Catholic identity surely knows, is in direct conflict with the teaching of the Church. Just today we sent to print Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae in which he, along with the bishops of the world, declares in unambiguous language:

“By the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine, based upon that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15), is reaffirmed by Sacred Scripture, transmitted by the Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.”

It is sad how those who are upholding the Church’s teaching on the inviolability of human life — like Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho — are discredited even within the Church (I am referring to the scandalous positions publicly expressed by bishop Fisichella) while others even within the top hierarchy of the Church are publicly speaking things that are simply violating the Church’s teaching.

I apologize if I have gotten the wrong impression, but if things are really as presented by LifeSiteNews.com then I am sorry to have to say that the words of Archbishop Fernando Saburido have done great harm to the Church and to the well-being of unborn children in the world, whose only hope lies with the Church. Those sowing the seeds of the culture of death will be all too happy to celebrate such mistatements of the teaching of the Church to the detriment of both unborn children and the Church.

Catholics all over the world fighting against the mass-killing of unborn children look upon such developments with profound regret.

Respectfully, but with deep concern,

Varro Vooglaid

Tallinn, Estonia

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Re: English Bishops Attack Cardinal for Comments on Homosexual Priest Crisis



However precisely or imprecisely the components of a statement are defined, it still raises hackles when there is mention of a link between homosexuality and child sex abuse or paedophilia.

We are, of course, aware that by far the majority of homosexual people have nothing whatever to do with child sexual abuse.

However, in the US, the North America Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), according to its website, gives ample testimony of a connection, and sees nothing wrong with man/boy sexual relations. It is opposed to age-of–consent laws. At one stage, it was a UN-approved NGO.

In the UK, paedophilia was at one stage considered to be another aspect of homosexual “rights”, and enjoyed respectability. The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) there had had connections with the UK National Council of Civil Liberties, until PIE was prosecuted and suppressed in 1982.

(The Fight for the Family, by Lynette Burrows, Family Education Trust, 1998)

In Ireland, we have some links that are hard to explain. According to a report in Magill Magazine of January 2002, the leading homosexual, Senator David Norris, regarded sexual contact with children as a form of education (for them). Consent was a key issue. He is quoted as saying that ” .. in terms of classic paedophilia, as practised by the Greeks, for example, where it is an older man introducing a younger man or boy to adult life, I think that there can be something to be said for it.”

With the assistance of the European Court of Human Rights, of Maire Geoghan-Quinn, (who was then a Minister) and of a Fianna Fáil/Labour government, he succeeded in making sodomy legal in 1993. Homosexuality itself was never illegal, nor would it be proper that it would be made so.

There is, of course, also a link between heterosexuality and child sexual abuse, including paedophilia. However, the incidence of this practice within each group is what needs to be made public.

Donal O’Driscoll

Editor’s Note: In Canada, homosexual activist groups strongly opposed the raising of the country’s age of consent for vaginal sex from 14 to 16 and advocated lowering the age of consent for anal (homosexual) consent from 18 to 16.

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Re: Sodano’s “Head Should Roll”: Report Reveals Close Ties Between Vatican Cardinal and Disgraced Legion Founder Maciel

Dear Editor,

Before I begin can I firstly thank you for your wonderfully informative and current website which is so full of un-biased and truthful reports, which in today’s media relm is a rare find indeed. I came accross LSN a few weeks ago and have been truly impressed at the level of journalistic integrity on display, day after day.

Sadly however after reading the report on the Legion of Christ and Caridinal Sodano I couldn’t help but feel somewhat let down. This article, I feel falls short of your otherwise very high standards. I acknowledge in full, the grave moral wrong-doings of the late Fr. Maciel however, the speculation and unfounded comments in this article are in my opinion a ‘scraping of the bottom of the barrell’ in attempt of making a more dramatic, sensational read. It is indeed a disappointment that this article has adopted the habits of a tabloid-type article at the expense of your credibility and charity as a truly Catholic news organisation. Hear-say should in no way influence the objectivity of a journalists work.

Can I just repeat again that I am a supporter of you website and find the articles truly newsworthy, so please continue the great work. May God bless your efforts in this time of great persecution, where the media’s role and responsibility is of paramount proportions.

Emma Kelly-Tokic B.A. Divinty

Ireland

Editor’s Note: LifeSiteNews is not a Catholic news organization. Quite a few reputable Catholic journalists and publications have referred to the NCR report as likely being credible, although possibly slanted and not entirely accurate. However, the investigative reporting track record of some NCR journalists does make the report worth taking seriously. We suggest that we ignore or ridicule it to our peril even though items noted in the report seem to be unbelievable and outrageous. LifeSiteNews has been aware of many things involving clergy over the years that do not make the NCR charges seem totally far fetched. As the saying goes, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Don’t forget that it was the anti-Catholic Boston Globe that broke the stories of the original US clergy sex abuse crisis. At first many condemned these reports and refused to believe that such horrible things could have occurred. Now we know they did occur and we are better for the information at that time having come out into the public light. The more recent news media attacks against Pope Benedict are, however, of a different nature.

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Re: NewsBytes – Life Issues, Religion (Social Justice), US Politics, Homosexuality, Miscellaneous

As part of your discussion about social justice, here is a link about Dorothy Day and Cardinal O’Conner’s opinion about her. Glenn Beck did a disservice to her.

https://www.cjd.org/paper/day-beck.html

Vickie Hoffman

United States

Note: The Glen Beck items about “social justice: under Religion in the April 21 newsbytes elicited a few strong comments. Vickie is right to point out where Beck did not get his facts about Dorothy Day right. Another reader, also noted that Beck wrongly labelled Fr Charles Coughlin in the same program. Still, in a second newsbyte about the Beck program, respected theologian Albert Mohler states that, although Beck was “reckless,” he had a point that needs to be made at this time. The leftwing, far more politically ideological than Christian “social justice” activists have had a free pass for too many years. In another of the newsbyte items Beck’s producer explains what Beck was attempting to convey on the program. In a fourth Newsbyte, a Townhall columnist weighs in on the common leftist Church “social justice” advocates whose “justice”, he says, is “more akin to Marx and Lenin, not according to Moses and Jesus.”