It appears the new administration is becoming firmly set culture of death policies, from a president who approves of abortion virtually anytime, and through the appointment of staff who apparently support mandatory population control, as noted in this article from The Catholic Thing.
An excerpt.
“First President Obama appointed Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who supports limitations on end-of-life care, as his top medical advisor. Now he has named John Holdren, another culture-of-death stalwart, as his top science advisor.
“This newest Obama czar openly stated his support for mandatory abortions in Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, a book Holdren co-authored with Paul and Anne Ehrlich some years ago:
“There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe ...
“Ecoscience also casually mentions sterilants in drinking water or staple foods of those who “contribute to social deterioration,” the implantation of long-term birth control devices in women who have already given birth to two or three children, and an international monitor empowered to enforce population limits on any nation under scrutiny. (The Ehrlichs and Holdren have claimed, quite implausibly, that they were just listing possibilities then under discussion.)
“Grilled by Senator David Vitter about these and other disturbing views last month, Holdren stated that it was “no longer productive” to think about optimal population size – but conceded little else. The media, as has become their custom when some Obama appointee is revealed to have an outrageously radical past, merely noted the hysteria of Holdren’s opponents but did not explore his positions.
“The Obama Administration’s social planners stand in a long tradition of progressives who reject the Judeo-Christian belief in the sanctity of human life. Many people still doubt that liberal-minded people actually hold such beliefs, but, as history shows, American progressives have often endorsed eugenics and other morally repugnant practices. Eliminating inferiors, they argued, is permissible in the name of preserving society as a whole. Holdren and his allies wouldn’t put it that way, because it plays badly – even to an adoring media. But they don’t hesitate to talk about restraining population in the name of preventing climate change – one of Dr. Holdren’s recent preoccupations.”
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Reentry, Transitional Jobs
This new program “The Joyce Foundation’s Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration: Testing Strategies to Help Former Prisoners Find and Keep Jobs and Stay Out of Prison”, is one to watch—especially as it will be strictly evaluated using random selection and a control group—crucial to determining program effectiveness.
The program involves providing subsidized transitional jobs, usually of 4 months or so, to just released prisoners, and along with the other services being provided, may actually make a dent in the reentry numbers, at least for the short term; but the moral problem of providing criminals with services not available to those who are struggling who are not criminals, remains.
We will come back to this in a year, when the full evaluation is expected, to see how it does.
Two excerpts from the report.
“The TJRD project targets men age 18 or older who were released from state prison within 90 days prior to enrollment in the study. It is widely believed that the first weeks after people are released from prison are a critical period in determining whether their transition will be successful. Men with all types of criminal histories were accepted into the project, with no project-wide restrictions based on the number or type of previous offenses (there were some limitations in individual sites).
“The sites recruited men into the study from January 2007 through September 2008. Slightly more than 1,800 men entered the study in all, with the site totals ranging from about 375 to 500.” (p. 12)
“All provide participants with temporary, minimum-wage jobs that offer 30 to 40 hours of paid work each week; all aim to identify and address behavior or performance issues that emerge at the work site; all provide a range of ancillary services and supports to participants; and all help participants look for unsubsidized jobs to follow the transitional jobs, often with the help of job developers who reach out to employers to identify job openings for participants.” (p. 10)
The program involves providing subsidized transitional jobs, usually of 4 months or so, to just released prisoners, and along with the other services being provided, may actually make a dent in the reentry numbers, at least for the short term; but the moral problem of providing criminals with services not available to those who are struggling who are not criminals, remains.
We will come back to this in a year, when the full evaluation is expected, to see how it does.
Two excerpts from the report.
“The TJRD project targets men age 18 or older who were released from state prison within 90 days prior to enrollment in the study. It is widely believed that the first weeks after people are released from prison are a critical period in determining whether their transition will be successful. Men with all types of criminal histories were accepted into the project, with no project-wide restrictions based on the number or type of previous offenses (there were some limitations in individual sites).
“The sites recruited men into the study from January 2007 through September 2008. Slightly more than 1,800 men entered the study in all, with the site totals ranging from about 375 to 500.” (p. 12)
“All provide participants with temporary, minimum-wage jobs that offer 30 to 40 hours of paid work each week; all aim to identify and address behavior or performance issues that emerge at the work site; all provide a range of ancillary services and supports to participants; and all help participants look for unsubsidized jobs to follow the transitional jobs, often with the help of job developers who reach out to employers to identify job openings for participants.” (p. 10)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Mantras and Reality
One of the mantras that has defined much of the speculation about crime and criminals over the past several decades is that crime is a result of social structural inequities and criminals are victims of society and/or rapacious government—depending on who is currently in power.
If any aspect of this was true to any significant degree, then a struggling economy would surely suggest a rise in criminality as socially directed criminals respond to less opportunity to be productive citizens by increasing their criminality, but as this article notes, that is not occurring yet.
From a traditional Catholic perspective, the social cause of crime is not true—to any significant degree—and criminals remain individuals who act on their own, know what they are doing, and have made their decisions and acted upon them in a relatively well thought out and utilitarian process based on the values of the world they perceive.
This social causation of crime perspective lies at the heart of the decades old failure of rehabilitation programs to actually rehabilitate, as they fail to rely on the truism that criminals are self directed individuals and as such, will only respond to rehabilitative strategies that present them with true reasons for leaving the criminal world for the communal—which the Lampstand model is built upon and addressed in the series of books we have published.
If any aspect of this was true to any significant degree, then a struggling economy would surely suggest a rise in criminality as socially directed criminals respond to less opportunity to be productive citizens by increasing their criminality, but as this article notes, that is not occurring yet.
From a traditional Catholic perspective, the social cause of crime is not true—to any significant degree—and criminals remain individuals who act on their own, know what they are doing, and have made their decisions and acted upon them in a relatively well thought out and utilitarian process based on the values of the world they perceive.
This social causation of crime perspective lies at the heart of the decades old failure of rehabilitation programs to actually rehabilitate, as they fail to rely on the truism that criminals are self directed individuals and as such, will only respond to rehabilitative strategies that present them with true reasons for leaving the criminal world for the communal—which the Lampstand model is built upon and addressed in the series of books we have published.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Catholic Martiality
One of the many terrible consequences of the great heresy of the reformation and the subsequent plunge into relativity in all things, has been a loss of the understanding of the martiality of our faith, the congruence and singularity of the mind of God as expressed in both the Old and the New Testaments.
As our secular world struggles with wars of various kinds—from drugs to crime to terror—we must remember that the only war worth fighting and the one that has already been won, is the war against evil; both within our hearts and within our community.
As our secular world struggles with wars of various kinds—from drugs to crime to terror—we must remember that the only war worth fighting and the one that has already been won, is the war against evil; both within our hearts and within our community.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Love & Mortification
I have always thought the admonition in Matthew 18: 8-9 about cutting off your hand if it offends you, referred more to an unrepentant member of the Church whose scandal called for the ultimate penalty of banishment or capital punishment as the verse (18:6) preceding it surely did; but as we see in the story of the first saint in the New World, St. Rose of Lima, it can also mean what it says, literally.
An excerpt.
“The first canonized saint of the New World has one characteristic of all saints—the suffering of opposition—and another characteristic which is more for admiration than for imitation—excessive practice of mortification.
“She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America was in its first century of evangelization. She seems to have taken Catherine of Siena (April 29) as a model, in spite of the objections and ridicule of parents and friends.
“The saints have so great a love of God that what seems bizarre to us, and is indeed sometimes imprudent, is simply a logical carrying out of a conviction that anything that might endanger a loving relationship with God must be rooted out. So, because her beauty was so often admired, Rose used to rub her face with pepper to produce disfiguring blotches. Later, she wore a thick circlet of silver on her head, studded on the inside, like a crown of thorns.”
An excerpt.
“The first canonized saint of the New World has one characteristic of all saints—the suffering of opposition—and another characteristic which is more for admiration than for imitation—excessive practice of mortification.
“She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America was in its first century of evangelization. She seems to have taken Catherine of Siena (April 29) as a model, in spite of the objections and ridicule of parents and friends.
“The saints have so great a love of God that what seems bizarre to us, and is indeed sometimes imprudent, is simply a logical carrying out of a conviction that anything that might endanger a loving relationship with God must be rooted out. So, because her beauty was so often admired, Rose used to rub her face with pepper to produce disfiguring blotches. Later, she wore a thick circlet of silver on her head, studded on the inside, like a crown of thorns.”
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Constancy & Confusion
Over the past several decades, the constancy of the teaching of the Church on many of the foundational principles has been challenged by internal dissent and a struggle to reshape the Church to become more congruent with the shapeless remnants of the Protestant Reformation.
This struggle has been highly visible within the United States and after years of consultation and deliberation, the Vatican has begun to directly address the confusion, and one result is the action beginning with one group of religious, as reported by Catholic World Report.
An excerpt.
“The unprecedented decision by the Vatican to undertake an apostolic visitation to assess the quality of religious life in orders of sisters in the United States came as a big surprise to many people when it was announced in January. That surprise was doubled with the news two months later that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) will be conducting a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents most of the leaders of US women religious.
“But people who have been closely watching the deterioration of many of the women’s religious orders in this country were not at all surprised that the Vatican initiated these assessments. Indeed, many sisters themselves have asked and prayed for Vatican attention to the condition of women’s religious communities. Certainly there is concern that the numbers of sisters are plunging and ecclesial properties are being converted to secular use, but even more critical problems are evident: many sisters no longer work in apostolates related to the Church and no longer live or pray in community, and sometimes sisters even openly dissent from Church teaching on matters such as women’s ordination, homosexuality, centrality of the Eucharist, and the hierarchal nature of the Church.
“Likewise, the LCWR has had a stormy relationship with the Vatican for the past 40 years, and the LCWR has been very clear about its determination to “transform” religious life as well as the Church itself.
“The Vatican has said very little about the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR by the CDF, but an April 2 letter from the LCWR to its members informing them of the CDF notification was obtained by the National Catholic Reporter. That newspaper reported that the CDF was undertaking the assessment because doctrinal problems that were discussed with LCWR leadership in 2001 still remain.”
This struggle has been highly visible within the United States and after years of consultation and deliberation, the Vatican has begun to directly address the confusion, and one result is the action beginning with one group of religious, as reported by Catholic World Report.
An excerpt.
“The unprecedented decision by the Vatican to undertake an apostolic visitation to assess the quality of religious life in orders of sisters in the United States came as a big surprise to many people when it was announced in January. That surprise was doubled with the news two months later that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) will be conducting a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents most of the leaders of US women religious.
“But people who have been closely watching the deterioration of many of the women’s religious orders in this country were not at all surprised that the Vatican initiated these assessments. Indeed, many sisters themselves have asked and prayed for Vatican attention to the condition of women’s religious communities. Certainly there is concern that the numbers of sisters are plunging and ecclesial properties are being converted to secular use, but even more critical problems are evident: many sisters no longer work in apostolates related to the Church and no longer live or pray in community, and sometimes sisters even openly dissent from Church teaching on matters such as women’s ordination, homosexuality, centrality of the Eucharist, and the hierarchal nature of the Church.
“Likewise, the LCWR has had a stormy relationship with the Vatican for the past 40 years, and the LCWR has been very clear about its determination to “transform” religious life as well as the Church itself.
“The Vatican has said very little about the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR by the CDF, but an April 2 letter from the LCWR to its members informing them of the CDF notification was obtained by the National Catholic Reporter. That newspaper reported that the CDF was undertaking the assessment because doctrinal problems that were discussed with LCWR leadership in 2001 still remain.”
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Martyrdom Today
We in the United States rarely think of martyrdom as it relates to Catholics for it has never been a deep reality here, as it has been in all other countries in the world at some point, but it continues today, deeply and horribly in some Asian countries, as noted in this report from Catholic Culture.
An excerpt.
“From Mumbai, India, reader Alex Kannattumadom writes:
“We acknowledge and appreciate the efforts you put up for a good cause. It is high time you look beyond your own territories to see, especially, the Church in India. She is going through a very precarious situation. You see the media headlines: Church burnt in Karnataka state, Bible burnt in Gujarat, Priests murdered in broad daylight in Arunachal, Nuns raped in Uttar Pradesh. The Clergy and the laity had to flee to thick forests and had to stay there for weeks in Orissa. The Holy Host is desecrated in public.
“Still we keep the lamp lit, unflickering, on a high lamppost. We In India deserve a moral boost and assistance from you.”
“Over the years we have carried literally hundreds of stories about the sufferings of Christians in India-- as well as the trials that our Christians brethren face in other countries. (See today's Feature about the latest fervent pleas by Vietnamese Catholics for an end to government oppression.) But I'm sorry to say that these stories attract fewer readers than most other CWN headlines. That's a shame-- literally-- because Alex Kannattumadom is right. Wherever Christians are suffering for the faith, they deserve our support.
“Maybe there isn't much that we can do to help our fellow Catholics living thousands of miles away, apart from praying for them. But prayer is the most important step that we could take to preserve their hope and their courage. And the knowledge that we are praying for them should bolster their morale.”
An excerpt.
“From Mumbai, India, reader Alex Kannattumadom writes:
“We acknowledge and appreciate the efforts you put up for a good cause. It is high time you look beyond your own territories to see, especially, the Church in India. She is going through a very precarious situation. You see the media headlines: Church burnt in Karnataka state, Bible burnt in Gujarat, Priests murdered in broad daylight in Arunachal, Nuns raped in Uttar Pradesh. The Clergy and the laity had to flee to thick forests and had to stay there for weeks in Orissa. The Holy Host is desecrated in public.
“Still we keep the lamp lit, unflickering, on a high lamppost. We In India deserve a moral boost and assistance from you.”
“Over the years we have carried literally hundreds of stories about the sufferings of Christians in India-- as well as the trials that our Christians brethren face in other countries. (See today's Feature about the latest fervent pleas by Vietnamese Catholics for an end to government oppression.) But I'm sorry to say that these stories attract fewer readers than most other CWN headlines. That's a shame-- literally-- because Alex Kannattumadom is right. Wherever Christians are suffering for the faith, they deserve our support.
“Maybe there isn't much that we can do to help our fellow Catholics living thousands of miles away, apart from praying for them. But prayer is the most important step that we could take to preserve their hope and their courage. And the knowledge that we are praying for them should bolster their morale.”
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