Theology of the Body Lessons for Racial (and other kinds of human) Justice

When he closed the book-length series of Wednesday talks that he had started early on in his papal ministry, Pope John Paul made sure to say, “...the term 'theology of the body' goes far beyond the content of the reflections presented here [technically, “the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage”]...” [TOB 133:1]. In fact, Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body offers a biblical foundation for a theological vision of the human person as the image of God. As such, it can be applied to every aspect of human life.

Since my entire adult life has been enriched by the insights of the Theology of the Body (TOB), I found it natural to go to this source-text for help in processing the racial crises in which we are immersed. It was not hard to find basic principles that I can use to critique media messages, slogans, even feelings and gut reactions to the flood of images and stories I am encountering as we continue to process and attempt to address a situation that can no longer continue as before.

In TOB, Pope John Paul makes much of the Bible's insistence on the creation of human beings “in the image of God, male and female” (Gen 1:27). Unique in material creation, in the human being, the body expresses a person. In one of the most beautiful sections, the Pope presents the revelation of Eve: woman, whose presence is a revelation that humankind, created in the image of God, is a partnership of equals. Adam finds that Eve is, like himself, a body-person: a person who is a body—but a body that is not precisely like his own. That first, fundamental human difference is sexual. As a species, we can only be represented by male and female (not either/or).

The otherness of the equal human companion reflects that first Other who is God, the one who created us to be enriched by our communion with himself, and created us a human family so that we could enrich one another by imaging God together and to each other. There is no subordination here. Neither expression of human nature, male or female, is better or more divine than the other. All other differences are simply variations on a theme. But the differences themselves are a communication. They speak of mutual enrichment; that each person will have something of value to give and to receive.

Of course, the first humans didn't have much time to enjoy that gift before someone introduced the poison of doubt. In the case of the original sin, it was a suspicion against God's fatherhood [TOB 26:4]. And once that was breached, humans began to steel their hearts further. Did you ever notice how, after the original sin, the man and the woman hurried to protect themselves from each other instead of from their real (and mutual) enemy? In our generalized experience, don't we all experience a kind of built-in suspicion against human brotherhood and communion? A fear of not having all that we need for our flourishing? A doubt that we can all flourish together? This is not natural; it was introduced by an enemy. It is a lingering poison in the human mind.

The person who is encountered in a body that is like, and yet also unlike, one's own, is to be loved for his or her own sake, never looked upon, thought of, spoken about, dominated or exploited as a means to an end [TOB 31:3]. How many times in history has this principle been violated! Isn't that why the current national crisis is exploding? Isn't this also behind a great deal of the historical injustice in our nation's immigration laws, which were first formulated in the early 20^th century with explicitly racial motivations?

The person is unique and unrepeatable, irreducible to any collective adjective or generalizations. He or she is “master of his/her own mystery” [TOB 110:9], with freedom and potential to surpass all expectations, limitations, and pessimistic prognostications that would doom him or her to a predetermined outcome based on demographic projections. Perhaps we suffer a kind of “social acedia,” an apathy of will and imagination that hesitates to propose greatness as a real goal, including the greatness of self-mastery (without which nothing worthwhile can be accomplished) [TOB 49]... Maybe the root of this social acedia is a personal acedia that is satisfied with the superficial, or with the entertainment I can enjoy right now on my phone.

This person before me is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23): We are members of the same family, available to one another to build each other up on this side of eternity.

This person before me, equal to me but different from me (whether in sex or age or ethnic background or number of chromosomes...), is a concrete invitation from God for me to enter into a truly human and humanizing relationship; to really become, with him or her, a sign of the “communion of Persons” in Whose Image we were made and in whom we will, if we live our vocations fully, live forever [TOB 9:3].

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Because nothing is more real than a story, here's Father Josh Johnson, telling his: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/faith/article_f132ca58-a9f0-11ea-91b7-b7ca56544615.html.

• Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/frjoshjohnson or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frjoshjohnson.
• Listen to his podcast, Ask Father Josh https://media.ascensionpress.com/category/ascension-podcasts/askfrjosh/ (here's a special episode “Healing the Racial Divide".
• And here you can listen to a homily he preached on Trinity Sunday:

TOB Tuesday and "The Light of Faith"

Mom with granddaughter #3, earlier this year.
I like the way that this photo lets you see the
"ray of light" from this relationship of love.

While I am on retreat, I have prepared a daily tidbit for you from Pope Francis' first encyclical, Lumen fidei ("Light of Faith"). Today's passage could have been taken right from Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body:

"The fact that our human loves contain that ray of light also helps us to see how all love is meant to share in the complete self-gift of the Son of God for our sake. In this circular movement, the light of faith illumines all our human relationships, which can then be lived in union with the gentle love of Christ" (N. 32).

Earlier, Pope Francis had written about faith as a communion with Christ that allows us to see with his vision. Here, that seeing with his vision leads to loving with his love. 

TOB Tuesday: The opposite of love

One observation Pope John Paul made while still known to the world (if he was known at all) as Karol Wojtyla was that the opposite of "loving" a person wasn't "hating" but using. When a person is reduced to a means decided by someone else, that person is being treated as a thing, not a person or partner at all. In Love and Responsibility, and later in his Theology of the Body, Wojtyla says that even when both parties in a relationship agree to what amounts to mutual exploitation, love--if it is there at all--is seriously compromised.

Is this for real?

Dr. Carlos Taja from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:

 

TOB Tuesday: John Paul II's "different" concept of human love

Getting into controversial terrain here by suggesting that a Pope offered a "different" vision than his forebears. What does Matthew Kuhner mean? And what is so "different" about John Paul's understanding of human love? What was that something "new" he offered the world in his Theology of the Body?

TOB Tuesday: My Body is Me, and it matters

For TOB Tuesday, another video from a student at the John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and the Family. This one has the provocative title "Who I do in My Body Matters."

TOB Tuesday: Body Image

Sara Hulse is a graduate student in the John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and the Family (in other words, a Vatican-established graduate school devoted entirely to the Theology of the Body). When our sisters went to Washington DC for the launch of the new translation of Love and Responsibility, they interviewed some of the students. (Look for more of these insights on future TOB Tuesdays!)

 

TOB Tuesday: Is TOB just a proof-text?

An earlier post for TOB Tuesday inspired a comment:
Will you discuss the question that TOB is based on proof texting? I'm bothered about that possibility.

Here's what I answered in an off-the-cuff way:
     Re: proof texting, I assume you mean TOB is an attempt to establish a scriptural foundation for the 1968 document "Humanae Vitae."
     It is clear that Pope John Paul intended to give the Church just such a gift. But did he do so after the fact, relying simply on the appeal to proof-texts as his only basis?
     If you read "Love and Responsibility" first (published in 1960) you see that Karol Wojtyla had been doing studies in the area of marriage and sexuality for many, many years. That is why he was part of Paul VI's commission on the birth control question: he was an acknowledged authority on human sexuality before there even was such an area of study. Both the documents of Vatican II and "Humanae Vitae" itself reflect some of Wojtyla's characteristic phrases with regard to marriage.
     TOB was actually written before he became Pope; it is the "biblical" companion volume to his more philosophical Love and Responsibility. (Since he could not publish the work in book form on being elected, he adapted the content to deliver it in person, by word of mouth).
     He did not make this stuff up in the quiet of his office; couples who had been college students during his time as a campus minister were sharing their stories and experiences with him--for decades. The real authors of Theology of the Body are those Polish couples who bared their souls to their pastor and friend. TOB is the distillation of those families' lives, put in conjunction with the Scriptures through the heart of Karol Wojtyla.
     Simply reading the Theology of the Body would be enough, I think, to override the accusation of proof-texting. The content and correlations are simply too deep. Proof-texting is necessarily superficial and disconnected; there is no inner logic or harmony among proof-texts as there is in a genuine sapiential reading of Scripture (which is what Marquette scripture professor William Kurz, SJ, calls TOB).
     I hope you will join us for the program! Even if you missed the first classes Saturday, you can catch up by using the archived files.

Later, I put a link to the post and comments on Google+ and got this input:
...a comment that Alice von Hildebrand made about TOB once struck me very strongly -- that TOB is about much more than birth control, much more than sex or marriage.  The parts of TOB relating to the glorious body, for example, go far beyond these narrow issues.  Could reducing most TOB conversations to birth control/sex feed the argument that it's an after-the-fact excuse for Humanae Vitae?  Maybe.

Good point! The sections of Theology of the Body that don't deal in an explicit way with marriage are often completely ignored, giving the impression that TOB is only about the hot-button issues. I am afraid I have been guilty of continuing that impression, assuming that these are the only areas in which most people have reservations about Church teaching that TOB addresses. There's not a whole lot of controversy right now with the resurrected life. Maybe there ought to be: Sister Helena tells me that in her work with young adults, there is very little recognition that that line in the Creed ("I believe ... in the resurrection of the dead") is about our future, body and soul.

What do you have to add to the conversation?

Can you take my place a minute?

Mom's healthcare crisis is preventing me from promoting the Theology of the Body class we will be hosting online starting May 4. I'd be so grateful if you could invite people you know to join us. Here is a flyer you can print out (or share the link to). It is especially good to share with deacons and "ministry people" in general.

With so much confusion in the area of marriage--people who are not just puzzled by Church teachings, but alienated from the Church or scandalized by what seems to be a rigid insistence on old rules, it is vital that practicing Catholics have a clear understanding of where the Church's teachings come from--and of how much beauty they uphold. That is why Pope John Paul spent almost five years offering these lessons.

If you haven't read any of his "TOB" talks, or have only heard references to Theology of the Body, why not join us? (Registration is now open for all 6 sessions.) You can go at your own pace: once a session has been recorded, you can log in later to watch it. Why not sign up for the first one (being recorded May 4) and get a taste?


If you can, I'd be very grateful if you shared the following on Twitter and Facebook:

Register now! Catholic Updating Series on the Bible and the mystery of marriage. Internet webcast starts May 4 www.ustream.tv/channel/TOB-TV Pls RT

TOB Tuesday: The question of marriage

Today the US Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in the first of two "same-sex marriage" cases. Not only is this, as Justice  Kennedy remarked, "uncharted waters," it is an area in which many people are pulled in two different directions: one by the head, and one by the heart. The nature of marriage seems an irrelevant and abstract question.

My Catholic education gave me a sense of direction, but when I was in school (back in ancient history), issues related to marriage and sexuality seemed pretty straightforward. Speaking for myself, I have to say that I did not get a very strong background in where the Church's teachings were coming from; I could only tell you (in a very rudimentary way) what those teachings were.

Then Pope John Paul II was elected.

He dedicated almost five years of his papacy to correcting that lack, giving Catholics the "big picture." He started "in the beginning" with Adam and Eve. He spoke almost every Wednesday morning about "original nakedness"; "being naked without shame" and other things that Popes had never thought to express in public. He spoke of the true meaning of eroticism (as an energy meant to draw us to beauty--and to God); why there is no marriage in heaven; what is the real problem with birth control; what Jesus meant in calling some to celibacy for the Kingdom. He remarked that being "created in the image of God, male and female" tells us something about the Trinity. He delved into five books of the Bible in particular: Genesis, Song of Songs, Tobit, Matthew, Ephesians, making this a rich, biblical understanding of human relationships.

Pope John Paul called this a "theology of the body."

If you have ever had to explain the Church's stance on same-sex unions, the contraception mandate, divorce and other painful realities; if you have been mystified or even scandalized by those teachings, and hesitated to share them with your children or defend them in public, Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body will surprise you with the real beauty, the divine beauty, that is the foundation of every one of those controversial teachings that the media so often refer to as "rules."

I am coordinating an online overview of that Theology of the Body on May 4, 11 and 18. I invite you to visit the bookstore website (www.visit.pauline.org/chicago) to learn more about the program, and to register for it. Even if you cannot join us in real time on those three Saturdays, your registration gives you access to the online video at your convenience. Because the program will be archived as Internet video, this is ideal for groups to use, no matter when they meet: a projector and speakers will allow a roomful of people to share one registration. (The content will keep you talking for days.)

Please ask your local parish to put information in the bulletin as well (at the bottom of this post I have a sample bulletin announcement). On the bookstore site, you will also find a trailer to share on social media. We have a Facebook page and a Google+ community (Theology of the Body), which I invite you to like or join.

Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtaDjkZMstA
Website: www.visit.pauline.org/chicago
Register: www.ustream.tv/channel/TOB-TV

BULLETIN NOTICE REQUEST

Please post the following announcement in your email, newsletters, web site and social media, beginning in April (continuing through May 18).
Thank you!

DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL

Online Catholic Updating Series on the Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul's meditations on the Bible and the mystery of marriage.
Internet webcast May 4, 11, 18; archived video accessible with registration (www.ustream.tv/channel/TOB-TV)
Information: www.visit.pauline.org/chicago or call 312.854.9656

Answering "the" question of our times

So many of our friends, neighbors and relatives, especially the young adults, are unsettled by what the Church teaches in the ares and marriage and the human body; this confusion leads them away from the life of the sacraments and into a life and mindset that is more and more "conformed to this world." 

What if there were a way to change the direction of this movement away from Jesus and his Church, and help young adults to learn and appreciate the amazing and life-giving teachings that they can only find in the Catholic Church?

One of the great gifts Blessed John Paul II left the Church was his "theology of the body," a biblical view of human nature and relationships that is more needed than ever in our own very confused age. 

Now I am excited to share with you a project that I have been working on. Hopefully you will be able to join us, too--or at least let others know about it, starting with this trailer (prepared for us by a college student volunteer: Thanks, Istle!) Please share it far and wide!



For registration links (and lots more details) see our bookstore blog.

TOB Tuesday: The Redemption of Desire

I haven't done a TOB Tuesday post for a while, but I'm glad to have the occasion: A couple of weeks ago received a review copy of Christopher West's latest book, "Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing." Much of the material is familiar--West incorporated it into the Theology of the Body "Head and Heart Immersion" program I participated in last October. Here's my take on the book version:

A healthy antidote to the twin maladies in Western culture (the full-throttle pursuit of pleasure on the one hand; the puritanical/jansenistic suspicion of it on the other), "Fill These Hearts" takes desire seriously as a vitally important aspect of the spiritual life. Ignore or repress it, and life, prayer, morality and religion itself are reduced to dry and unappetizing duty. Gorge yourself with short-term satisfactions and you become a hamster on a wheel, turning every relationship, opportunity or experience into a means to the same end, the never-ending pursuit of a "more" that will always fail to satisfy the soul. There is a third way, West promises: desire rightly ordered keeps fire in the soul, even as it keeps the soul turned toward the ultimate good of communion with God.

This is a book about that rightly ordered desire. How do we recognize our deep desires? How do we respond to them in an enlightened and even passionate way without being driven blindly by them into destructive choices? How do we live "temperately, justly and devoutly" (Tit. 2:12) in this present age, when even a walk down a city street means encountering soft porn on billboards and bus shelters? Is it possible to live sexual purity passionately? (Yes! West says: "A properly disciplined eros is even more wild than its 'frat house counterfeit'.") What does all this mean in the relationship of man and woman?

West illustrates this highly readable book not simply with references to Scripture or to the writings of Popes and saints, but with abundant pop culture references to the insatiable (if often misinterpreted) hunger for God, the ultimate goal of desire. Thankfully, West also disproves the common contemporary suspicion (nurtured, no doubt, by the reduction of "devotion"--a word of passion--to "duty") that Heaven might be boring!

Home again, Home again!

I have a long wait in the Philadelphia airport for my long trip back to Chicago (via St. Louis????). But here at Gate E13 there is a magnificent view of downtown in a kind of frame of bright clouds; I have the ease of a Southwest Airlines "stand-up" computer table to use, plus my communications technology (and a Kindle), so I have a chance to begin to catch up on a few things after almost a week away.

Already the "processing" of the TOB experience has begun, thanks in part to a project I was engaged in between the sessions. I had brought a voice recorder to get some interviews from my fellow participants, in case I had another opportunity to host a radio show. Guess what? There in my mail box was a message asking me to ... host a radio show on October 24. I had a few technical issues with the recorder (not the least was failing batteries--and all the spares I had brought seemed to be just as weak as the old one), but I did get a few "TOB voices" on issues around Theology of the Body and the rhetoric of the "war on women." One of the most distinctive voices came from a young woman who runs an orphanage in Sierra Leone. When I get back to my office, I will be busily putting those interviews together in a usable form--I hope!

Among the insights I got from the presentations by Christopher West was the not-exactly-news that people are all, always, looking for love. Peter Kreeft speaks of this in terms of the "God-shaped hole" in the human heart. It's a search that testifies to our ultimate destination, but we keep expecting proxies to meet that need. Some people, West said, become "addicts" whose lives are consumed by the search for the next "hit" whether it is in the form of serial relationships or some less-than-human filler. Theirs is the path of idolatry: putting a human being or an earthly good (like pleasure or achievement) in God's place. But not even in the best of all marriages can the spouses really complete one another to that degree!

Others try the "stoic" route and simply try to repress the desires of the heart, the way the "iconoclasts" of old went around trying to destroy the icons of Jesus and the saints that were supposed to be windows into eternity. For the stoics, there's no place to go anyway.  Until this afternoon, I had kind of pegged myself as the "stoic" type. After all, my hero in 4th grade was Mr. Spock from Star Trek, the half-man, half-Vulcan who didn't have any pesky feelings complicating his life! Nope. I just have a kind of subtle "addiction" that I pursue with all the doggedness of our more aggressive panhandlers back in Chicago.

Only the "mystics" get it right. They aren't afraid of intense desires, knowing that these are a message system from God telling us that life on earth is lived in the tension of the "already" and the "not yet" of communion with God: already lived now in the sacramental language of the body, in view of the full experience of what it means to be the image of God (which is too big a reality for any place but heaven).

TOB Tuesday: African Voices

By the bounty of Twitter, I was led to this post featuring an open letter to Melinda Gates by a Nigerian woman in the biomedical field. You may have heard that Gates plans to pump $4.6 billion in birth control into Africa to "liberate" the women of that continent. "I see this $4.6 billion [in birth control] buying us misery. I see it buying us unfaithful husbands. I see it buying us streets devoid of the innocent chatter of children. I see it buying us disease and untimely death."

Now working in England, Obianuju Ekeocha (age 32) points out that the African women she knows and among whom she grew up, do not look on childbearing in the same way that the billionaire American does. "Unlike what we see in the developed Western world, there is actually very high compliance with Pope Paul VI's 'Humanae Vitae.' " There is a natural, societal appreciation for the language of the body (that the cosmopolitan North had to learn from Pope John Paul II).

There is a healthy acknowledgment, too, that their villages do not have the medical infrastructure that widespread access to contraceptive chemicals and devices presume: "...Where Europe and America have their well-oiled health care system, a woman in Africa with a contraception-induced blood clot does not have access to 911 or an ambulance or a paramedic. No, she dies."

Then there's the environmental impact: "....as $4.6 billion worth of drugs, IUDs and condoms get used, they will need safe disposal. Can someone please show us how and where will that be? On our farm lands where we get all our food? In our streams and rivers from whence comes our drinking water?"

Ekeocha doesn't just tell Gates (and the rest of the wealthy western world) where she has failed to think things through; she suggests ways that the allocated billions could respond to the needs of African women and children, beginning with prenatal and pediatric care, and continuing through food and education programs and support for women-run microbusiness and for already functioning organizations that deal with issues of domestic violence, sex trafficking and forced marriage.

Ekeocha's letter (and a follow-up email to the blogger who posted it) shed real light on the issues behind one very confused Catholic woman's efforts to use her incredible wealth on behalf of others.

TOB Tuesday: Pornography and Purity of Heart

While I was visiting my family in south Louisiana, I managed to make it to the chapel of Our Lady of Wisdom in Lafayette for my friend Fr. Sibley's mass and TOB homily. He gave a broad TOB introduction before focusing on the sin of "unchastity" mentioned in the Gospel. (If the people of Lafayette realized what a fantastic preacher Fr. Sibley is, he'd have to celebrate Mass in the Cajun Dome to accomodate the crowds!)

Listen to Fr Sibley's homily on porn addiction for yourself, and then share the link far and wide so that it reaches people in most need.

TOB Tuesday Special Edition: The most painful challenge?

A few weeks ago in our Chicago bookstore, I approached a woman to see if she was finding what she needed. She held up the booklet she had been flipping through. It was for Catholics facing infertility. I checked our computer system, and there were only two other titles in the database--neither of them in stock. That's because one of those books hadn't been published yet.

It's available now for that young couple, and for many other heartbroken Catholics. This is a spiritual resource for couples, with stories of other couples'  struggles and experiences (including attempts at in vitro fertilization and other artificial methods of "skirting" but not healing infertility), suggestions for praying together, and information about the science behind NaPro-TECHNOLOGY, an approach to infertility that is consistent with the Theology of the Body and Church teachings on human life and the integrity of the couple's intimate life. 

This is an important book, not just because of the hope it can offer suffering couples, but because NaPro is an example of great news that nobody knows. How many Catholic couples end up alienating themselves from the Church because they turned in desperation to assisted reproduction techniques? Nobody told them that NaPro has as much success as the more aggressive approaches, but without the compromises (or side effects). So get this news out there, especially in younger circles! (This Pinterest link may help.)

For your Facebook page, here's a link right to the Pauline webstore:
http://store.pauline.org/English/Books/tabid/126/ProductID/3872/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName

TOB Tuesday

Over the long weekend, I learned of yet another resource for women's health that seems to be consistent with the principles we draw from Theology of the Body: women are treated as complete persons, not simply reduced to a reproductive system; the medical aspects of reproductive health starts with the woman's understanding of her own body, not with a doctor's expertise (though FEMM has a strong formal medical division with specialized materials for doctors): it's just that everything starts by treating the woman as a person, and above all as a person in relationship. THAT's a TOB view of the human  person!

FEMM "demystifies reproductive health and empowers women and girls with the knowledge to chart their own reproductive course." And it doesn't leave out the other half of the fertility equation: a very significant difference from so many approaches to "reproductive health."

A woman involved in the launch explains:

 "Authentic women’s healthcare recognizes that women have a right to know and understand their own bodies, and to receive the knowledge they need to be partners in the management and choices they make for their long-term health. Such knowledge enables women – and men – to work together to achieve the physical and emotional health that women need and deserve."
...
"It is obvious, but worth stating, that men are also persons – subjects with rights – who experience themselves as subjects in relation to other subjects, and who act and self-determine. Further, as with women, men also long for intimacy with another person. Because of this deep longing and capacity to give fully to another, men want to enter into the reality and knowledge of the other person to whom he longs to give himself fully. Thus, men, too, are key partners in the understanding and management of women’s health.

"This ability to interact in a way that respects each person as a subject, and which enables being in relation with another person while respecting his or her freedom, is necessary for authentically personal, or human interactions to take place."

This program is still in its "beta" stage, but is welcoming participants as it attempts to perfect its online charting system.

TOB Tuesday: Scripture and TOB

A few years ago I had a wonderful conversation with Father William Kurz, SJ  of Marquette University. He had just finished a monograph on the Scriptural Foundations of Theology of the Body, and today I found it online. (Lucky me, he had sent me an advance copy shortly after our conversation, so I have been able to draw on his insights for quite some time!) Download it now [with a right click and "save link as...]

Father Kurz is a Scripture scholar, and offers a pretty accessible summary of Pope John Paul's insights. Where some Bible experts have looked at Theology of the Body and shrugged at its approach to Scripture, Kurz (who can do historical criticism with the best of them--indeed, he teaches it) recognizes that the Pope was doing something that didn't fit in the academic categories. Clearly, John Paul was not offering an exegesis, or an analysis of the various manuscript traditions, or a cultural-anthropological study. Instead, Kurz says, the Theology of the Body fits into the best of the biblical traditions: it is a "wisdom" reading of the Scriptures, such as you find in books like Sirach and Ecclesiastes. This kind of reading takes the divine message as a whole, rather than piece by piece, and sees the unity of God's word as it offers a message for our own times that would not have been needed in former ages (just as we find it hard to read the Bible with the lens of someone from the 3rd or 9th or 13th centuries).

This paper can be helpful especially for biblically-grounded readers to get an overall sense of what the Theology of the Body is, and how its teachings draw from Scripture, applying it to our own culture's concerns, questions and dilemmas.

Healthcare and "the" mandate: testimony from an "unconservative"

For TOB Tuesday, I offer you "the Dutchman." Leave it to this most unconventional of Catholics ("Latin Mass Catholic, National Bolshevik"?) to offer a unique perspective on the issues of the day. I wish I had been more faithful to my Google Reader a few months ago, when this post first appeared of his blog; alas, it was impossible, as I was studiously avoiding anything that didn't relate to the Lenten presentations I was writing at the time. Now, even though it is less newsworthy, his post is still timely:

In 2008 I was at a Christmas party given my one of my ultra-Catholic friends. These are the kind of people who sing Christmas carols in Latin, say Rosaries for the unborn, and hold prayer vigils outside of Planned Parenthood clinics. These are people who do not use contraception, home-school their kids, and would never wear anything so revealing as a sleeveless dress. This was right after Obama was elected, but before he was inaugurated and, naturally, there was a good deal of speculation about what he would do. Healthcare was obviously on the table and I would say that two-thirds of the people there favored socialized medicine. That’s right; more than half the people in that room, people as culturally conservative as it is possible to be, favored a Single-Payer System – but with one proviso: you had to keep abortion out of it. The next day, I wrote President-elect Obama a letter with this simple message: you can sell a single-payer system to conservative Americans if you keep abortion out of it. (I also sent this same letter to David Axelrod, whom I actually know and have done business with.)

Read the rest here.

Catholics and Biotech

I learned from my mother how to put off ironing, but eventually it just has to be done. I tend to wait until there's a good hour's worth of ironing waiting for me so I can tackle it while listening to an audio conference and thus make the effort doubly worth my while. And so I did today.

The conference I listened to had a pretty intimidating title ("Theology of the Body and Dignitatis Personae: Reflections on Christian Anthropology as the Foundation of the Culture of Life: Transforming the Culture of Death from the Roots Up")--but don't let that scare you. The talk covers just the sort of issues you find in the newspaper every day: issues in which Catholic Church teaching seems to be summed up as "just say no" and to be represented as totally out of touch with the needs, concerns and rights of people today. The presenter, Dr. Peter Colosi, looks especially at questions related to in-vitro fertilization and why the Church teaches that this technological "answer" to infertility violates the rights of the very children who are brought into being by means of it.

I found the presentation very helpful; the Q&A after the prepared talk also addressed some of the conundrums society presents us with, giving Catholics a different lens from which to analyze the different issues that are contained in a single question or challenge. In fact, I found the whole thing so helpful that I will be looking for similar presentations that I can share with you from time to time. (Save your ironing!)