Congratulations To Pope Francis

Congratulations to Pope Francis (Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina) on his election to the Papacy.

Many may have forgotten that he was supposedly a contender in 2005.  I had dismissed him as being too old to be considered this time.  Either this was not an issue for the Cardinal Electors or they believe him to be in good health.

Others may be wondering why a Latin American was elected to be Pope.  About 42% of the Catholic Church is in Latin America and his election reflects this.

Yesterday I was discussing possible Pope names with my wife.  I mentioned that it had been a while since we had a Pope take a name that had not yet been used by a Pope.  My research shows that the last Pope to take an original name was Pope Lando in 913.  I later recalled that John Paul I in 1978 took an original name.  Considering that John Paul I chose the two names together to honor both of his predecessors, so it is not as original as taking a name like Francis that had not been used as a Pope's name.

Pope Francis looks like a Pope to me.  A few days ago I had an image of John XXIII appear to me.  This image appeared to me when looking at an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Although Francis is not as large as John XXIII, the image that appeared to me reminds me more of Francis that John XXIII.

Finally, I am certain the Holy Spirit guided the College of Cardinals in selecting Pope Francis and I am sure he will guide the Church well.

Congratulations to Pope Francis, our new Pope!

Challenge: Is Care For The Poor, Sick, And Elderly An Intrinsic Evil?

Earlier today I saw online a Catholic arguing that our Christian obligation to support those that cannot support themselves (the poor, sick, and elderly) is more important than the issue of abortion.  Although I do not know the person, I chose to reply because of the nature of the audience that would see his position.  What follows is my response to his opinion that care for those that cannot support themselves is more important than ending abortion.

Taking care of the poor and sick is certainly a good thing for us to do. However, supporting anyone that stands behind allowing the killing of innocent people is intrinsically evil (for those not familiar with the term intrinsically evil, please see this blog post; it means "evil no matter what the circumstances.") You could argue that one candidate allowing for an exception in limited cases is intrinsically evil in order to not support him, but if you do that you would have to not support the other candidate that supports abortion with no exception for the same reasons. In which case you would have to find another candidate to support. Support for abortion is morally wrong. As the bishop said,"One might argue for different methods in the platform to address the needs of the poor, to feed the hungry and to solve the challenges of immigration, but these are prudential judgments about the most effective means of achieving morally desirable ends, not intrinsic evils," and that is our first obligation as faithful Catholics.

If a President and Congress make changes that cut back drastically on support of the poor and sick, we can still provide for them through our own work. So long as there are laws that allow abortion (with no exceptions), we are allowing an intrinsic evil to occur. If laws were to come that would make it illegal for us to provide for the poor and sick, we might have an interesting discussion on whether caring for them or allowing abortion were the greater intrinsic evil, but they are both intrinsically evil and we could not support a candidate with either belief. The one intrinsic evil in play here is abortion. We might disagree on how to provide for the poor and sick, but how that is performed is not a moral issue, in which case we are called to support that candidate that does not support abortion (with no exceptions).

There are other moral issues as well, like support for gay marriage, that go against the teaching of the Catholic Church. One might argue that we have no right to force our morality onto others, but this is something that will have an impact on any religion that believes in marriage being between one man and one woman. Laws are being pushed to force churches to perform "same sex marriages." If this is not an issue of religious freedom, then I don't know how far the government would have to push to make people of faith realize that the government is intruding in religion. Secondly, there is a good amount of imagery in our faith that is rooted in marriage like the creation accounts and the marriage of Jesus to the Church. These images lose their meaning as "same sex marriages" become legal. Do you want the teachings of the Church to become watered down because of changes in the law?

"Same sex marriage" is a moral issue as are abortion and care for the poor and sick. The intrinsic evils are abortion and "same sex marriage," which means "evil no matter what the circumstances." I hope you understand how abortion and "same sex marriage" are "evil no matter what the circumstances." Go back and reflect on whether how one party plans to care for the poor and sick is "evil no matter what the circumstances." If you still feel that supporting a candidate that supports abortion and "same sex marriage" is acceptable, please explain your rational. The rationale should explain:
1) How one candidate's plans for caring for the poor and sick is an intrinsic evil.
2) Why abortion and "same sex marriage" are not intrinsic evils OR why it is acceptable to support a candidate that supports one intrinsic evil over a candidate that supports another intrinsic evil.

I challenge any Catholic to provide such rationale.

I "Unfriended" Someone Today - The Failure Of Logic And Reason

About a year ago I reconnected with a high school friend on Facebook.  While we have some common interests, it became quickly apparent that we did not agree on religious, social, and political issues.  The social and political issues which we tended not to agree stemmed from religious beliefs - he is an atheist and I am a Catholic.  I entertained discussions with him because it gave me a chance to grower deeper in my faith.

The discussions would be on the role of religion in the government and moral issues.  We would have a few good exchanges on a topic and then insults were thrown at me because he perceived a comment of mine to patronize him.  He did not like it when I would remind him of something from history in response to his criticism of something the Catholic Church has done.  His response would be something like "don't patronize me, I've studied history for the last 10 years and have a Masters Degree in History" or "I studied the Bible and Church Fathers and learned a lot."  I do not doubt that those statements are true, but that does not excuse his comments or even suffice as a logical response.  Rather than giving me a reasonable or logical argument, he chose to give me his credentials and expected me to give up.  If one really has the credentials the cite, then they should be able to give an answer rather than shoving the credentials in another's face.


For a while I ignored this and tried to continue with the discussions.  He would either drop out of the discussion or come back to the beginning of the discussion.  Either way, the discussion basically came to an end.  Then another topic would come up and we would go through the same discussion points.  I really tired of this as he would continue with the same comments that I already refuted.  Without fail he would bring up  priest sex abuse and make that out to be a problem unique to the Catholic Church.  Despite many refutations regarding the frequency of allegations compared to the general population, the time period from which most of the alleged abuse occurred, and the Church following the norms of society when dealing with abusers, he continued to use this as an argument against the Church (Note that I do not think any actual abuse by anyone is acceptable).  He even went as far as claiming that the real reason the Church opposes abortion is because every abortion is one less child for a priest to molest.


Despite having to restate my arguments, that is not why I chose to "unfriend" him today.  About six weeks ago I was in a political discussion with him and he reminded me that the President of the United States is elected by the people.  I know that is code for some people that believe that Congress should approve anything the POTUS wants simply because he is elected by the people.  I reminded him (and anyone else using that argument) that Congress is also elected by the people and they have a responsibility to their constituents, not the POTUS.  He does not like it when I remind him of that and feels that I patronized him by doing so.  If he really know how the different branches of government work, he would not think that the POTUS should get whatever he wants.  Anyhow, during this particular discussion he chose to deactivate his account.  This is a habit I had noticed of his when he would get upset about a discussion.  Perhaps he has another reason to leave Facebook, but it always seemed to be in the middle of an especially heated discussion, one in which he felt it necessary to throw his credentials at me rather than continuing in discussion.  If you are going to claim there is no God, make attacks against my religion, claim to use logic and reason instead of God, refuse to give logical arguments to defend your beliefs, and even runaway or hide instead of continuing a discussion, then I have no use for you.  This happened too many times and I had decided to "unfriend" him when I realized he deactivated his account.  I could not do this at the time because I cannot "unfriend" someone whose account is not active.  Since I saw some posts from him today, I knew this was my chance to "unfriend" him as I intended.


This is part of what I have noticed with many atheists online, Facebook or elsewhere.  They claim to be the group of people that use logic and reason when it comes to god and morals.  Many of them focus their attacks on Christianity, especially the Catholic Church.  They have canned responses to many issues and I have come across many of them.  When it comes to morals, they will eventually bring up a Levitical law.  They do not understand how certain laws no longer apply because of the new covenant given to us by Jesus Christ.  Any claim to that will question why some laws still apply and they simply will not accept that moral laws from the Old Testament still apply.  They just state that they do not interpret the New Testament that way and will not give a reason why.  If these people are really the people who use logic and reason instead of god, they should be able to give an answer to this.  They would rather point out where they think religious people are not following the teachings of their religion rather than understand the basis for such teachings.  When it comes down to defending their interpretation of the Bible, they fail because their logic and reasoning is wrong.

Is the Mississippi "Anti-Abortion" Law Unfair?

Yesterday we saw that a Federal judge is blocking "a state law that threatens to shut down Mississippi'sonly abortion clinic and make it nearly impossible for women to get the procedure in the state."

As we have heard for a while, the abortion business is about women's health.  If that is really the case, then those supporting the abortion industry should be concerned about what happens to the woman having an abortion and something goes wrong with the procedure.  If one reads the entire article linked above, they will notice "(Clinic owner Diane) Derzis said that since she acquired Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2010, no woman has had to be taken from the clinic by ambulance."  That may be true, but that does not mean that no woman receiving treatment at the clinic needed to be taken to a hospital.

In this article from 2010, we see a variety of issues with clinics that perform abortions.  This includes botched abortions in Columbus, OH, "illegal abortions, unlicensed staff dispensing drugs and performing medical tasks for which they were not qualified" in Nebraska, a doctor "violating the terms of his probation by doing abortions without the required supervision of another physician" in California, and two "forced abortions" in Michigan.  These could very well be exceptions, but let's take a closer look at the issue in Columbus.

Looking deeper into the story of two botched abortions, we see disregard for the woman's health immediately following a botched abortion.  In the first instance "a pro-life sidewalk counselor saw a young woman leaving...an abortion clinic in Columbus, Ohio, after an abortion...the patient swooned, dropped to her knees, and began to vomit as she bled heavily through her clothing."  She was at the clinic for a total of two hours and felt "nauseated and lightheaded" during her visit and when she was discharged."  At the emergency room, she was treated for heavy bleeding, and given medication for her dizziness and nausea. It took emergency medical professionals six hours to stabilize her."  Where was the concern for the woman's health at the clinic?  Were they just trying to get rid of her because they thought something serious might happen to her?  Perhaps even death.  If they clinic staff is concerned about women's health, they would have kept her there or taken her to one of the hospitals at which the doctors have admitting rights.

The second case is a woman being "admitted to a Columbus hospital after suffering excessive bleeding and pelvic pain after her abortion...According to her transcripts, she suffered from a hematoma, or internal bleeding inside the tissues, and excessive clotting. Efforts by hospital staff to contact the clinic were unsuccessful."  Again we have a woman having to go to the hospital due to complications from an abortion.  The article is not clear on whether she was discharged from the clinic before going to the hospital.  Considering that the hospital was unsuccessful in contacting the clinic, I think it is safe to assume that they discharged her.  Furthermore, the fact that the clinic would not respond to the hospital regarding the treatment of one of their patient's tells me that this is yet another clinic that is not really concerned about the health of the woman.

It is possible that these are isolated cases in one city.  Some would even say that it is likely that these are isolated cases and I will give them that.  However, if you dig around you will see that problems like this are being uncovered across the country.

The fact of the matter with this law is that the State of Mississippi needs assurances that the women receiving abortions in Mississippi is given the proper and necessary care, especially in the events of complications.  While this law may have been drafted with the intent of shutting down the abortion industry in Mississippi, the law does bring abortion clinics to the same standard as all ambulatory surgical centers.  If this law were drafted with any other type of clinic in mind, it would likely be a non-issue.  If this law were really unfair, it would be holding abortion clinics to a higher standard, not bringing them up to the standard of other surgical centers.

Objectifying Professional Athletes

Today, the day after the MLB All Star Game is the most boring day in professional sports in the United States.  It is the one day* of the year where neither MLB, NBA, NFL, or NHL have an on field sporting event.  I am going to take this opportunity to address an issue on professional athletes and their salaries.


A lot of people complain about teams spending a lot of money and having an unfair advantage in being able to sign whoever they want. This is the case in MLB where teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels spend money to get the best players to be in contention for the championship. The people complaining here don't like that the players go for the most money instead of sticking with their team. So I ask those complaining if they would stick with their employer if their competition offered them substantially more to do the same thing? 


Secondly, these players want to have a chance to win. Isn't that what playing professional sports is about?


People who do not like the salary structures in MLB (although MLB has added a luxury tax to help curb this) call for salary caps. I am not a fan of this as it keeps teams from using all of their resources to field a competitive team. Also, if the sport is popular elsewhere in the world, you run the risk of having the salary cap keeping the best players in the world from coming to your league. Although the NBA is not quite at a hard salary cap, they are almost there. We see a few teams get more than their share of superstar players like the Celtics, Heat, Lakers, and soon the Nets (no the Knicks are not even close yet). Many of the people who complain about free spending in MLB don't like that these superstars have taken less than they could earn elsewhere in order to pay for a team that can contend for the championship. So I ask these people, which is it that you don't like free spending or salary caps? The fact is that most of best players want to play for championship winning teams.


It seems to me that the people who do not like what is happening with free spending in MLB and players signing for less to play for championship contenders in the NBA want players to stick with the teams that drafted them. I understand the sentiment they have in that they think the players should show some loyalty to the teams that gave them a chance. First of all, we know the draft system is designed to help teams that did not do well in the prior year. If the player were free to sign with whoever they wanted and had to play their way onto the team, instead of just entering a draft there might be something to be said about the team giving them a chance. That is not the case here. In many cases the best players go to bad teams and have to play out their original contract while the team does little to turn themselves into a contender. When the player becomes a free agent, he wants to move to a contender. Forcing a player to stay with the team that drafted him allows teams to underpay their players as there is no market for the talent. Think about what that would mean if it applied to people outside of professional sports. That is not what anyone wants for their own ability to work where they want and negotiate their salary, so why should we expect that with professional athletes?


Some people will argue that because these athletes work in the eye of the public that we should be able to demand certain things of them.  For instance, people think it is appropriate to yell profanities at them for not doing well enough and want them to play for less salary.  It is never appropriate to yell profanities at anyone.  Although I might feel like someone has not done their job, I must remember that I would be yelling at a person and they need to be treated as a person.  To do otherwise would be to objectify them into the service I expect them to do.


As for expecting athletes to play for less salary, we have to remember that economics comes into play here.  So long as people are willing to pay the prices to attend the games and advertisers are willing to keep paying as much as they do to advertise, the players should receive a good chunk of the revenue.  Their playing the games we enjoy watching is the product we are purchasing.  If the athletes did not get a decent portion of the revenue, then we would be complaining about team owners raising prices just to make a larger profit and that is another issue when owners do this rather than trying to field a competitive team.


Players, as do most people, want to make more money.  They also want to play for a champion.  Setting up a system that forces a player to stay with their original team can keep their salaries artificially low.  We would not stand for this if such a system were in place for ordinary people.  Yet many sports fans expect players to stay with the team that gave them a chance for a lower salary.  As previously mentioned, the draft systems are setup so that a player really does not have a choice on which team can sign him so no specific team really gave them a chance to break into the league (yes, there are some exceptions for undrafted players, but even they deserve to be paid appropriately for their work).  When we demand someone to accept a lower salary simply because we want them to be forced to stay with a particular team, we have objectified them.


Just as we are capable of making a sports team into an idol god through the value we place on them, we must be careful not to do the same with professional athletes.  We must respect that every professional athlete is a human being and treat them as such.


*There was recently a change in the scheduling of either the NBA or NHL that caused another such day in the winter, but I do not recall if that was done just once or if it is a permanent change.

Union Control At Stake In Wisconsin

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker faces a recall vote today. Some inside and outside of Wisconsin are afraid of how that will change people's right to unionize and that is a bad thing. First, let's look at the facts of what Governor Walker has done. He has balanced his budget, put into place reforms that will keep costs of public sector employees from being a long-term burden on the state, and passed laws that do not force people to join a union.

Union supporters are against this.  Students from Sheboygan Lutheran High School were at the capital and decided to chant in support of Governor Walker.  The unions did not care for this.  "At the Capitol, they encountered the Solidarity Singers, who have been repeating Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie songs of socialism every weekday for the past year.  Although it is a regularly scheduled event, they have done so defiantly without permit."  Because they spoke against the union, they received threats of physical violence.  Yes, the students voiced their opinion without a permit to assemble.  The action of the students was an impromptu activity and did not do any damage to the capital or surrounding area unlike the union supporters who camp there without a permit."

Indiana has a similar Right to Work laws as Wisconsin. "The union bosses (in Indiana) have filed a lawsuit claiming that right-to-work laws violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on slavery."  Read that again, they think it is slavery if people are not forced to join a union.  I agree that unions have a purpose, but no one should be forced to join one.  It is not a violation of the Constitution's prohibition on slavery to keep one from being forced to join a union, rather it is a violation of one's freedom to force them to join a union.  One could even argue that it is slavery to force someone to join a union as they would be subject to paying union dues and going along with whatever the union negotiated for their wages and benefits.  Right to Work laws are not unconstitutional, but forcing people to join a union is. unconstitutional.

Governor Walker has reclaimed Wisconsin, but the union people will have you believe that this recall is about reclaiming Wisconsin.  People have the right to recall their elected officials.  They also have the right not to be ruled by unions, forced to join unions, or forced to drive themselves into debt because of excessive benefits given to union employees in the public sector when compared to benefits given for similar work in the private sector.  If this so-called reclamation is going to be done by people that do not want to be fiscally sound, threaten high school students with physical harm for supporting something against their cause, and think it is slavery to keep people from being forced into a union, then go ahead and show your support for recalling Governor Scott Walker.  

The Golden Rule - Treading In Dangerous Water

Yesterday President Obama spoke about same-sex marriage and his change of mind about this.  The linked article shows a brief history of Obama's view of this.  "In 1996, as a state Senate candidate, he indicated support for gay marriage in a questionnaire, but Obama aides later disavowed it and said it did not reflect the candidate’s position."  So he either marked the questionnaire incorrectly or he did not want others to know his position.  Then "in 2004, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he cited his own religion in framing his views: 'I’m a Christian. I do believe that tradition and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.'"  Yes, it is good to see that his religious beliefs bring him to this conclusion.  Those who cry for separation of church and state will not like this, but they should be up in arms about the dangerous water President Obama is treading with his comments about his recent change of mind.  It is my opinion that the main reason why religion is included in information about candidates is so that people will know what morals the candidate has and will be using to form their decisions.  Then "As president in 2010, Obama told ABC News’ Jake Tapper that his feelings about gay marriage were 'constantly evolving. I struggle with this.' A year later, the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, 'I’m still working on it.'"  So we have a religious man stating that he is struggling with his beliefs while running the country and hardly anyone is questioning his wavering beliefs.


Then we get to his comments yesterday on his support for gay marriage:

'This is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and, hopefully, the better I’ll be as president.'

There are two points to be made here about the bold part of the quote above.  First, and the alarming most important to the country, we have a President who is preaching.   Second, is the misinterpretation of the Golden Rule in the Bible.


With a preaching President comes many issues.  First and foremost is the separation of church and state. Many people that remind us of this necessity often use it to keep religion out of the public sector.  The text of the First Amendment in regards to this reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and does not preclude religion from the public sector.  The opposite is true in that government has no place in religion or keeping a person from practicing their religion.  President Obama's preaching does not enact a law nor is he in Congress.  However, he has stepped into dangerous water when he admitted that "obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others" and citing a specific passage of the Bible for justifying his belief.


President Obama obviously knows that his position on gay marriage is at odds with other Christians and is becoming argumentative in stating his beliefs.  If he wants to argue these points, then he should engage in such a debate with a qualified defender of the faith rather than letting his position as President allow him to preach.  There are many people who may be lead astray if these comments go unchecked, especially with lack of media coverage on rebuttals of the President's comments.


Also, in regards to the issue of a preaching President, is that non-Christians are alienated.  Not only is he at arms with Christians of other beliefs, but with atheists, Jews, Muslims, and other religions.  Is the word of the President to be the Word of God?  Atheists would certainly have an issue with this as they do not believe in God.  Accepting the change of mind of the President is the easy way out of this discussion simply because it conveniently goes along with the majority viewpoint of atheists.  If the President is going to preach on why he supports gay marriage, atheists should be afraid of whatever else he might do based on his changing interpretation of the Bible.  People of other Christian beliefs will find themselves defending their beliefs against the public megaphone given to the President.  People of other religions will be alienated along with atheists because his preaching comes from books that are not part of their sacred scripture.


The second issue is the misinterpretation of the Golden Rule.  Elsewhere President Obama is cited as quoting the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.  Mt 7:12 is one place where we find the Golden Rule "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you."  We also see this in the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-49).  Specifically, Lk 6:31 reads "Do to others as you would have them do to you."  The passages of Lk 6:27-36 and Mt 5:43-48 have to do with the love of enemies.  All Christians should abhor things that go against the teaching of God.  As such, they would not want to have someone commit a sin against them.  So if one does not want to have sin done against them, they should not sin against anyone either and that is the point of the Golden Rule.  President Obama is mislead on the purpose of the Golden Rule in forming his conscience about gay marriage.  This is about not sinning as opposed to being a basis for letting people do whatever they please.  While there are some questionable interpretations of scripture that could lead someone into thinking that homosexual relations are not condemned by God, the Golden Rule is not one of them.


These are difficult times for people of faith as our President seeks to remove religion from the public sector while using his office as a means to preach religion.  President Obama is trading in dangerous water.  We must not be afraid.  Just like the disciples in the boat were struggling,"the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it" (Mt 14:24), we must remember that Jesus is with us and we should not lose faith.


"When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. 'It is a ghost,' they said, and they cried out in fear.    At once [Jesus] spoke to them, 'Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.'   Peter said to him in reply, 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.'   He said, 'Come.' Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.   But when he saw how [strong] the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, 'Lord, save me!'  Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'  After they got into the boat, the wind died down."  (Mt 14:26-32)