OSV | Pope Benedict XVI | Papal Visit 2008

Outing the motives behind repealing "Don't ask, don't tell"

By Russell Shaw

The first and most important thing to understand about the gays in the military debate is that it isn’t really about gays in the military. Not at bottom, at least. The fundamental issue in this argument is about the societal acceptance of homosexuals and, especially, of the homosexual lifestyle. Gays in the military is only a chapter in a much longer story.

Most people, including most moral conservatives, are today quite prepared to extend acceptance to homosexuals and lesbians as individuals — as neighbors, fellow workers, classmates, parishioners, and indeed as friends. The issue, then, boils down to publicly declaring one’s homosexuality and acting out the lifestyle associated with it. Is this also something that must be accepted? That’s what we’re arguing about.

Take the military as a case in point. This debate often gets confused because of a confused way of formulating the issue. According to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen — and many others and the media too — the question is “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly” in the military. But that isn’t so. Gays and lesbians serve openly in the military now and always have. After all, anyone who serves in the military serves openly, regardless of sexual orientation.

The accurate way of stating the issue would be to say “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military as gays and lesbians.” In other words: declare their sexual orientation openly and openly act it out. Here of course is where the question of societal acceptance arises, along with the problems.

Considered in this light, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy strikes me as a reasonable solution and President Obama’s push to get rid of it as a mistake. The policy lets gays and lesbians serve in the military just as they’ve always done. It merely specifies as a condition that they not broadcast the fact of their sexual orientation. The policy may need some touching up to rule out abuses, such as the spiteful outing of gays by third parties, but in principle it can stand as it is.

That isn’t acceptable to homosexuals. Why? Because it sets a condition, and unconditional acceptance is their goal. But although the yearning for unconditional acceptance is understandable, in human affairs generally it’s asking too much.

Society sets many conditions on people — to vote you have to be a citizen, to drive a car your eyesight must be pretty good. It also, necessarily, sets conditions on service in the military, including — up to now — the condition that gays and lesbians not call attention to their sexuality. The reasonable grounds for this particular condition reside in the fear that doing so could be disruptive. There is nothing unfair or unreasonable about that.

But of course it looks highly unfair and unreasonable to someone for whom the unconditional, across-the-board acceptance of homosexuals and their lifestyle, not only in the military but in all social contexts, is the ultimate objective of an emotionally charged drive for “rights.” In that ongoing effort, legal recognition of same-sex marriage is by far the biggest prize. But the unconditional acceptance of gays and lesbians and the lifestyle associated with them in the context of military service is considered a worthwhile intermediate step.

To say these things in the face of today’s pro-gay secular culture is to risk being smeared as a homophobe. To say them also is to repeat the tested wisdom of many centuries. Let’s stick with don’t ask, don’t tell. It makes good sense.

Russell Shaw is an OSV contributing editor.

So this is what all the fuss was about?

By Mary DeTurris Poust

I did not see the controversial Tim Tebow ad during the Super Bowl yesterday, so I had to call it up on YouTube this morning. My reaction: disappointment, confusion, boredom. I just didn't get it. There was nothing specifically pro-life about the ad, other than a mom showing a baby picture and saying the baby almost didn't make it. But that's certainly not some sort of over-the-head anti-abortion campaign.

After hearing abortion advocates rant about how this ad was inappropriate for family viewing and would require parents to explain abortion to young children, I was expecting to be shocked, or at least interested. Unfortunately I'm sure very few people took the next step to go to Focus on the Family's website to view the "full Tebow story" and hear the real pro-life, God-centered message this family has to share. I guess the point was to drum up so much controversy beforehand that it didn't matter if you saw the commercial, went to the website or slept through the entire game. In that sense, I guess the ad was a success.

What did you think of the ad? Tell us in the comment section.

The more practical side of romance
By Mary DeTurris Poust

During this month of February, when all the world is aglow with red hearts and dark chocolates and sparkly diamonds, my husband, Dennis, and I will be tackling some of the real issues that married couples face as they struggle to balance practical necessities with romantic niceties. Every week this month over at Fathers For Good, an initiative of the Knights of Columbus, Dennis and I will be posting columns on different topics important to married couples. This week we tackle finances:

The trouble money can cause

By Dennis Poust and Mary DeTurris Poust

Even in homes with no serious money issues, finances can become a point of contention. Add a little economic insecurity into the mix, and you have the makings of a potential disaster. In these troubled times, there’s no doubt that money matters can turn wedded bliss into dreaded stress. Here’s our take on how finances can make or break a marriage. Continue reading...

Stunning Haiti slideshow

Don't miss this slick slideshow of images Tom Tracy took for us on assignment in Haiti. Click here.

Move that church! Extreme makeover for one parish

By Mary DeTurris Poust

What do you do with a 100-year-old church after it closes? Well, for one Buffalo parish the answer was decidedly outside the box: "preservation through relocation." That's right. The 800-seat basilica is going to be moved, piece by piece, granite column by granite column 900 miles away to an Atlanta suburb, reflecting through its physical relocation a very real societal shift as Catholic populations decrease in the northeast and flourish in the south.

On the project website, Moved by Grace, St. Gerard's Church in Buffalo is described as an "approximation" (one-third the size in scale) of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. After it closed in 2008 due to dwindling parish membership, preservation became an issue because of the severe weather on the shores of Lake Erie. Enter Mary Our Queen parish in Georgia, where what started as a small mission with 70 families in an office building grew into a 15,000 square foot "temporary" structure for 700 families in search of a permanent home.

In an article in USA Today, the plan is described in detail:

"Transplanting an 800-seat, century-old basilica would be an exceptional solution to an increasingly common problem: what to do about the growing inventory of closed churches across the Northeast and Midwest.

"In recent decades, thousands of American churches — no one, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has exact numbers — have closed. Some have been bought by other congregations. Others have found new lives as performance spaces, catering halls, art galleries, restaurants, homes and, in Cincinnati, an Urban Outfitters retail store. But a range of factors — including the unusual size and shape of churches, and restrictions sellers often impose on their reuse (no alcohol sales, no astrology, etc.) — limit the number that find an afterlife.

"Many, like St. Gerard's, sit empty and decaying, waiting for demolition. A neighborhood loses an architectural grace note, and those who built it lose something they feel is sacred, according to Wendy Nicholas of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

"Advocates of the plan to move St. Gerard's say it could be a template for saving closed church buildings by finding them new parishes in the suburbs or the Sun Belt — 'preservation by relocation,' as Mary Our Queen's website calls it.

"The Catholic diocese of Buffalo and most former parishioners describe the plan as the only way to save St. Gerard's. Buffalo has a glut of closed, empty churches — the diocese alone is trying to sell 22 other buildings — and a small congregation looking for a church probably couldn't afford St. Gerard's heating bill."

The story is fascinating, especially since one former St. Gerard's parishioner coincidentally ended up in Mary Our Queen only to find her old church was following her to her new home. Read the full story HERE. For more information on the project, click HERE.

Top ten OSV stories in January
Here are the OSV Newsweekly stories that generated the most traffic on our website in January:

1. Bishops support health reform but find major moral 'deficiencies' in proposed bill

2. How to help kids and others make sense of Haiti tragedy

3. Editorial: This year's pro-life march may be the most important since its inception

4. Editorial: Why Catholic media is an irreplaceable alternative

5. Column: Catholic body parts, or How the American propensity for self-sorting into like groups has impoverished the Church

6. Haiti's Catholics bury their dead; turn to rebuilding from ground up

7. US bishops set sights on immigration reform

8. Column: Making babies, or No-holds-barred attitude toward creating children leads to dismal consequences

9. Column: If you’re reading this you don’t need to

10. Editorial: Why help Haitians? Or a story more about poverty than natural disaster

A sane 'pro-choice' voice speaks out for Tebow ad
By Mary DeTurris Poust

It's no surprise that a Super Bowl ad would garner lots of hype and attention, but what is surprising is that this year's hype isn't over bikini-clad women selling beer or Victoria's Secret models prancing around in underwear. It's about a Heisman Trophy winner and his mom celebrating life. Go figure.

Today self-described "pro-choice" Sally Jenkins, sports columnist for the Washington Post, had a great column on the Tim Tebow ad controversy. Here's a snippet:

"Obviously Tebow can make people uncomfortable, whether it's for advertising his chastity, or for wearing his faith on his face via biblical citations painted in his eye-black. Hebrews 12:12, his cheekbones read during the Florida State game: 'Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.' His critics find this intrusive, and say the Super Bowl is no place for an argument of this nature. 'Pull the ad,' NOW President Terry O'Neill said. 'Let's focus on the game.'

"Trouble is, you can't focus on the game without focusing on the individuals who play it -- and that is the genius of Tebow's ad. The Super Bowl is not some reality-free escape zone. Tebow himself is an inescapable fact: Abortion doesn't just involve serious issues of life, but of potential lives, Heisman trophy winners, scientists, doctors, artists, inventors, Little Leaguers -- who would never come to be if their birth mothers had not wrestled with the stakes and chosen to carry those lives to term. And their stories are every bit as real and valid as the stories preferred by NOW."

Even the New York Times came out January 30 in favor of the decision by CBS to allow the ad to run, albeit for reasons of promoting so-called "reproductive choice." From the editorial:

"A letter sent to CBS by the Women’s Media Center and other groups argues that the commercial 'uses one family’s story to dictate morality to the American public, and encourages young women to disregard medical advice, putting their lives at risk' — a lame attempt to portray the ad as life-threatening. Others argue that even a mild discussion of such a divisive issue has no place in the marketing extravaganza known as the Super Bowl.

"The would-be censors are on the wrong track. Instead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about: protecting the right of women like Pam Tebow to make their private reproductive choices.

"CBS was right to change its policy of rejecting paid advocacy commercials from groups other than political candidates. After the network screens ads for accuracy and taste, viewers can watch and judge for themselves. Or they can get up from the couch and get a sandwich."

To read the full Sally Jenkins column (h/t Kathryn Jean Lopez), click HERE. To read the full New York Times editorial, click HERE.

In memoriam: Ralph M. McInerny

By Russell Shaw

Ralph M. McInerny was not all things to all men, but he came uncommonly close. Scholar, teacher, author of mystery novels and serious philosophical works, controversialist, Christian gentleman — these were a few aspects of his many-faceted personality during a long and distinguished career.

Appropriately enough, McInerny died Jan. 29, the day after the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, his intellectual mentor and model. He was 80. Appropriately, too, his funeral Mass was celebrated in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame, an institution he deeply loved, loyally served for over half a century, and often criticized in his latter years for actions he judged inimical to its Catholic identity.

McInerny, Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at Notre Dame and director of its Jacques Maritain Center, began teaching philosophy there in 1955 and retired last June.
A former student of his, one of many now a university professor himself, said, “He called forth the best from us by seeing it in us before we did. Most of all perhaps he provided a living model of a philosopher, a mentor, and a man who embodied virtues and commitments that inspired us all.”

Astonishingly, McInerny wrote over 80 books. Of his philosophical works, "Aquinas and Analogy" (1999) is considered perhaps the most significant. His puckish sense of humor was visible even when he wrote about philosophy, as when he titled one volume "A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists" (1990). Often, too, he wrote as a controversialist, publishing books critical of aberrations in the Church since Vatican Council II and of attacks on the late Pope Pius XII for supposedly being insensitive to Jews. One of his late works was a collection of poems, "The Soul of Wit" (2005).

As an author, however, he was familiar to the general public largely for mystery novels, numbering more than 60 and sometimes written under pen names. Best known were 29 Father Dowling mysteries about a crime-solving priest, which provided the basis for an ABC television series from 1989 to 1991. Among other works of fiction, his 1973 novel "The Priest" was a best-seller.

McInerny’s prodigious output was the product of a vast capacity for hard work and huge self-discipline. Someone who once attended a conference with him ago recalls that after the midday break he said that, having put in his stint on the program during the morning, he was now going upstairs to his room.

His companion assumed this meant going upstairs to make phone calls and take a nap. No, he explained, it meant getting back to the writing — he was working on a book, as usual, and he had no intention of letting other activities interfere with that.

McInerny received his doctorate from Laval University in Quebec and taught for a year at Creighton University in Omaha before coming to Notre Dame. He and his wife had seven children. He was a member of President George W. Bush’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appeared often in the national media, with author and scholar Michael Novak founded Crisis magazine, and published hundreds of articles both popular and scholarly. Periodicals in which he appeared included The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He was devoted to Notre Dame. A friend recalls visiting there the first time and, a stranger, being welcomed warmly by McInerny and given a personal tour of the campus. He remembers little else about the occasion except his guide’s evident pride in a place he loved.

Presumably it was with heavy heart that McInerny in recent years became a public critic of Notre Dame. His criticism peaked last March in an essay taking exception to the university’s decision to award an honorary degree to President Barack Obama despite his support for legal abortion. “A deliberate thumbing of the collective nose at the Roman Catholic Church,” McInerny pronounced it.

“The invitation to Barack Obama is far from being the usual effort of the university to get into contact with the power figures of the day. It is an unequivocal abandonment of any pretense at being a Catholic university,” he wrote. “Lip service may be paid to the teaching on abortion, but it is no impediment to the truly vulgar lust to be welcomed into secular society, whether on the part of individuals or institutions.”

Ralph McInerny himself often was welcomed in that way, but there was nothing vulgar about him.

Russell Shaw is an OSV contributing editor.

Addendum to USCCB controversy
Here's a follow-up to my previous post about John Carr, the U.S. Catholic bishops' director for justice, peace and human development, who responded here to "unfair allegations" today by the American Life League regarding his involvement with a group that has been linked to abortion advocacy and gay rights issues, the Center for Community Change (CCC).

In response to my questions, Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of the U.S. bishops' media relations office has:

1. CONFIRMED the American Life League's assertion that the bishop's Catholic Campaign for Human Development gave $150,000 to CCC in 2001. But it CLARIFIED that during the time he served on the CCC board, his office at the bishops' conference did not then have jurisdiction over CCHD (countrary to American Life League's claim about conflict of interest). And it says CCC has not received any funding since.

2. CLARIFIED that Carr left the CCC board in 2005 (American Life League said 2006). It said his previous work for CCC was "a few months" after leaving the Carter administration, which ended in 1981. He was part of a group trying to work with block grants. "He then went to work for the Archdiocese of Washington as Cardinal Hickey's secretary for social concerns."

3. NOTED that the pro-abortion and pro-gay-rights "activities highlighted in ALL e-mail campaign took place long after" Carr left the CCC board.

I'll keep on this and will be sure to add updates here.

USCCB's John Carr responds to 'unfair allegations'
You may have seen the accusations floated today by the American Life League about John Carr, the layman who heads the U.S. bishops' Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development.

The pro-life group notes that while working for the bishops' conference, Carr also chaired the board of an umbrella group of grassroots organizations called the Center for Community Change. In general, CCC is involved in predictable progressive causes (including in ways that overlap with Catholic social teaching) like immigration reform, health care reform, affordable housing and workers' rights. But, as documented by Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, the CCC also corporately supports tax-payer funded abortions and same-sex marriage.

That's led the ALL to the serious charge of the bishops' conference engaging in “a systemic pattern of cooperation with evil."

I asked the bishops' conference for a response. John Carr writes:

Neither the American Life League nor the Bellarmine Institute contacted me, CCHD or the bishops' conference before making these accusations. If they had, they would have learned that I left the board of the Center for Community Change in February of 2005 and that I had no involvement in or knowledge of the actions alleged in the press release.

My experience with CCC was that it focused on poverty, housing and immigration and had no involvement in issues involving abortion and homosexuality.

When I served, the board never discussed or acted on any position involving these matters and if they had, I would have vigorously opposed any advocacy for access to abortion or gay marriage.

I have spent my personal and professional life defending human life and dignity and Catholic teaching, including current efforts to keep abortion funding out of health care reform. I regret that once again the failure to contact me or CCHD has led to unfair allegations in attempts to undermine the essential work of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

I have more questions in to the conference about this and will update this post when I have answers. UPDATE IS HERE.

Give Mother Teresa the stamp of approval

By Mary DeTurris Poust

In case you've been out of the news loop for a while, there is quite a controversy raging (raised by an atheist group, of course) over Mother Teresa's upcoming appearance on a U.S. postage stamp. I know, it's crazy. When you think of all the people and things that show up on postage stamps, this 'controversy' seems beyond ridiculous. Putting it all in perspective for us is Jesuit Father James Martin, whose post over at In All Things is really all anyone should need to read to convince them that this whole debate is a tempest in a teapot. The photos of stamps honoring Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and Homer Simpson help to drive home the point.

"Put her on the damn stamp already," Father Martin concludes. Amen to that.

Great post. Click HERE to read it now.

Support a bishop with online prayers
By Mary DeTurris Poust

Rosary for the Bishop, a nationwide campaign to encourage Catholics to pray for their bishops online, got its start back in 2005, when one Catholic in the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, started a local effort to support Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison. As of today, however, that small seed has grown into a group of more than 350 online prayer warriors praying for more than 50 bishops across the country.

According to a CNS story, Rosary for the Bishop was "inspired by a passage from Chapter 17 of Exodus, which refers to Aaron and Hur holding up Moses' hands during battle."

From the CNS story:

"We need to support our bishops' hands so that they do not weary in the battle for the faith," said Syte Reitz, the Madison-area Catholic who initiated the campaign.

"Many Catholics pray the rosary every day," he added. "Why not pray one for our bishops? They are our shepherds, and their job is not easy. They need and deserve our prayers."

You can sign up online to pray for one bishop or multiple bishops. There's also an option to receive reminders via email or Twitter when you are scheduled to pray. And you can see how many other people are praying with you.

Rosary for the Bishop's website says:

"Heaven knows that our good Bishops are under fire for standing up for our Catholic Faith nowadays. What can we do about it? Support them with our prayers!"

To join the campaign, click HERE.

Sisters at the Smithsonian
By Mary DeTurris Poust

"Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America," an exhibit celebrating the courageous and determined women religious who came to the United States almost 300 years ago and changed the landscape of their new land through their groundbreaking work in education, health care, child care, and so much more, is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution's International Gallery of the S. Dillon Ripley Center through April 25.

Sponsored by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in association with the Cincinnati Museum Center, the exhibit starts with the Ursuline Sisters who arrived in New Orleans in 1772 and works its way through Revolutionary times, the Civil War, civil and women's rights battles to the present. Among the artifacts on display is a letter from Thomas Jefferson praising the work of the Ursulines, the nurse's bag of a Sister of Charity who was known as the "Angel of the Battlefield" for tending to soldiers on the front lines of the Civil War, and the gavel of a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary who became the mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, in 1980—the first woman religious to be elected mayor of an American city.

After the exhibit wraps up at the Smithsonian, it heads to Cleveland, followed by Liberty Island, New York; Dubuque, Iowa, and South Bend, Indiana. For the full schedule, click HERE.

Needle exhange program in upstate New York is first for Catholic Charities in U.S.
By Mary DeTurris Poust

Catholic Charities of the Capital Region in Albany, N.Y., is starting a controversial needle exchange program -- the first of its kind by Catholic Charities in this country -- in an effort to prevent IV drug users from contracting AIDS when they share needles.

In an article in the Times Union, Sister Maureen Joyce, R.S.M, CEO of Albany Catholic Charities, said "I understand there will be questions, but this is common sense. I strongly believe in this. It will save lives."

The program will allow drug users to anonymously receive syringes and other medical supplies from a custom van that will be located in areas of Albany where injection drug use is known to be occurring.

Later in the same article, Sister Maureen is quoted as saying that the needle exchange is in keeping with "the stated mission of Catholic Charities" and with the larger mission of Christians to care for others.

"From a theological standpoint, we're not being faithful to our mission if we don't reach out to people addicted to drugs, too," she told the Times Union.

For the full story, click HERE. Let us know in the comment section what you think about Catholic Charities running a needle exchange program.

Agendas of Obama and U.S. bishops: Any overlap?
By Russell Shaw

After a first year in office marked by legislative frustration, declining poll numbers, and rising voter discontent, President Barack Obama is now pursuing a scaled-back agenda for 2010 with one overriding priority: jobs. The two big priorities of the American bishops — immigration and health care, and especially the former — seem to be getting short shrift.

With unemployment hovering around 10 percent, not counting people who’ve stopped looking for work, the bishops undoubtedly are also concerned about jobs. But, as they’ve done for years, they continue to press for their issues. Already since the first of the year they’ve launched an effort to mobilize 19,000 parishes nationwide on behalf of health reform that includes abortion funding restrictions, and have called for speedy congressional action on immigration.

Obama is on record favoring immigration reform, but he did nothing about it in 2009, and immigration was not among the topics last night in his State of the Union speech to Congress. In fairness to the president, it must be said that the kind of reform favored by the bishops, with generous provision for regularizing the status of many people now in the country illegally, stands no chance in Congress now.

As for health care, Obama gave it a plug in last night's speech. But it received nowhere near the attention he's given it previously, and he offered no indication of what he personally might do to help get a bill passed. Currently health care reform is stalled in Congress, although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) continue to explore possibilities.

As measured by his words, Obama’s legislative agenda is by no means short on issues. Along with job creation, these include a three-year cap on discretionary programs that account for 17 percent of the federal budget, small-scale but generally attractive measures to benefit the middle class, and some new business tax incentives. But there’s no telling now which of the other things he mentioned he will put presidential muscle behind.

In any case, by comparison with his ambitious objectives of a year ago — health care, environment, financial reform — Obama’s new agenda undoubtedly reflects what John F. Harris of Politico calls “downsized ambitions for a downsized moment in his presidency.” This readjustment reflects Democratic electoral defeats and heightened concern about the midterm elections next November.

Still, Obama unquestionably did lay some glowing rhetoric on health care. “Now is the time to deliver on health care,” he declared.

The bishops said much the same shortly before the president spoke. In a joint letter to Congress dated Jan. 26, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the pro-life committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chairman of the bishops' domestic justice and development committee, and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the migration committee, deplored “the moral and policy failure that leaves tens of millions of our sisters and brothers without access to health care.”

But the bishops also said the bills pending in Congress still would leave 18-23 million people uninsured. And they once more criticized the Senate-passed bill’s abortion provisions, which would expand government funding.

A day earlier, many Catholics in Washington were surprised to read a Washington Post story reporting that, along with former Secretary of State Colin Powell and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, has been a “sounding board” for Obama several times in the past year.

Citing White House aides, the newspaper said Cardinal McCarrick has had “several private and sometimes unreported meetings, talking with the president about the Middle East and health care.”

Whether coincidentally or not, USCCB staff indicated late last summer that the White House had suddenly started seeking talks about finding common ground on health care, including the abortion issue. Not long after, the president himself began saying publicly that he wanted to stick to the “status quo” on the matter, which since 1976 has limited government funding for abortion to cases involving rape, incest, and the mother’s life.

The House eventually passed a bill including such a provision. But the Senate in December voted for a version that expands abortion funding, and Obama prefers it to the House bill. This is how matters stand at the moment, with abortion one among many issues contributing to the current impasse. If the president and the cardinal sit down together again any time soon, they should have lots to talk about.

Russell Shaw is an OSV contributing editor.

New Jersey woman dies from abortion injury
By Mary DeTurris Poust

Abortion advocates constantly remind us that abortion must be kept legal in order to keep women safe, and yet one single mother of four is dead because of fatal injuries allegedly sustained during a legal abortion procedure at a clinic in Queens, N.Y. Of course, clinic workers are denying they did anything wrong since the woman was declared dead at a nearby hospital not on their grounds. But a N.Y. Daily News story reports that one of the woman's arteries was severed during the abortion. So you make the call on who was to blame. The clinic, by the way, was described as a "one-stop gynecology and plastic surgery clinic" and was still seeing patients as of yesterday. So much for keeping women safe.

Read the full story HERE. H/t to the New York State Catholic Conference.

Notes, photos from Haiti
By Mary DeTurris Poust

In his role as Chairman of the Board for Catholic Relief Services, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York visited Haiti this past weekend. While there, he was celebrant of the funeral Mass of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot and Msgr. Charles Benoit, vicar general for the Archdiocese of Port-Au-Prince, both of whom died in the devastating earthquake.

"I find myself having experienced profoundly both the sorrow, the tragedy, the darkness and death of Good Friday, and the beginnings of the light and radiance and hope in resurrection of Easter. My experience these last 48 hours have been a bit of both," Archbishop Dolan said in an interview with the New York press after his visit. "...When I went to St. Frances de Sales Hospital, which is a hospital supported by Catholic Relief Services, there in the rubble was the whole neonatal unit. And you could see the ruins of the incubators and the beds, crushed. You could see the rocks piled one on the other. And there were the mothers there crying because over 40 of their babies were there in the rubble. When they asked me just to pray with them and to give that grave a blessing, you can imagine what a Good Friday experience that was."

You can see photos and read Archbishop Dolan's comments by visiting his blog, The Gospel in the Digital Age, by clicking HERE. You can listen to the interview with the New York press by clicking HERE.

Catholic Relief Services continues to run updates and photos on its site as well. Get the latest by clicking HERE.

Exposing the roots of America's national discontent

By Russell Shaw

As Americans wait, hopefully or apprehensively as the case may be, to see what happens next to the Obama legislative agenda, a question unavoidably suggests itself: How on earth did we get into this mess? A mess that evidently transcends the question of health care, unemployment or any other particular issue and reflects the fact that Americans collectively are angry, confused, and fed up.

“Anger” has of course become every pundit’s favorite explanation for what happened in Massachusetts, where voters handed a Senate seat occupied during most of the half-century past by John and Edward Kennedy to a Republican, Scott Brown. But anger about what?

President Obama says it was residual anger at George W. Bush. Others, noting that Obama has been president for a year, say it’s anger at him. There’s probably truth in both explanations.

Obama was elected in 2008 because he promised change. So far he’s failed to deliver — at least, to many people’s satisfaction. Whether that reflects a failure of policy, of procedure, or of personal temperament, or the machinations of a vast right-wing conspiracy directed by Rush Limbaugh, is an interesting question but one that needn’t detain us here. What matters is that although Obama promised change, to many people things look much as they did before — and they don’t like it. Taking matters into their own hands, it seems, Massachusetts voters produced a change named Scott Brown.

So what is going on here? What’s really bugging Americans in large numbers these days?

A great deal of the answer is found in the history of the last two decades.

After the fall of communism and the end of the cold war, Americans were promised the “end of history,” a happy ending to end all happy endings. The country still had a few little problems of course, but none of them too serious. After half a century of international anxiety and nuclear threat, Americans could finally put their feet up and relax.

One predictable result of this was the onset of an era of national self-indulgence and self-deception. Its most visible symptom was an economic boom in which greed and risk-taking became the norm.

Complacency was shattered on Sept. 11, 2001. Suddenly the nation was on virtual wartime footing. Americans accepted it at the time. But now, going on nine years later, the strain is starting to show. Iraq was excruciating. Afghanistan looks the same. A man fingered to U.S. intelligence as a threat nevertheless got a shot at blowing up a U.S. airliner last Christmas Day. Add to that the economic crisis of the last two years. Now do you wonder why people want change?

But the roots of the national mood go deeper. It’s been clear for years that the consensus on moral values holding the country together is badly frayed. The rights and wrongs of fundamental issues are bitterly disputed. That’s what the culture war is about. And the efforts of courts to impose solutions are deeply resented.

The United States today unquestionably does need change. And on a fundamental level — the level of values and beliefs. When and if a leader emerges who can satisfy that desire and bring Americans together again on things like abortion and gay rights, as well as on less sharply defined issues like illegal immigration, environmental policy, and health care reform, he or she will be welcomed. But given the ideological polarization of the values debate, that won’t, and the nation’s current angry and unsettled mood seems likely to persist into the indefinite future.

Russell Shaw is an OSV contributing editor.

Archbishop Dolan to go to Haiti this weekend
By Mary DeTurris Poust

The Archdiocese of New York just announced that Archbishop Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and chairman of Catholic Relief Services, will visit Haiti this weekend. Full release follows:

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and Chairman of the Board of Catholic Relief Services, will attend the funeral Mass for Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, who was killed in last week’s catastrophic earthquake. The funeral will be held on Saturday, January 23, 2010 in the plaza in front of the demolished Cathedral.

Because he is the Chairman of CRS, the Archbishop was asked to attend the funeral by the Papal Ambassador to Haiti, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, and the surviving bishops of Haiti. While in Haiti, the Archbishop will also take the opportunity to offer support to CRS workers already working in Haiti and assess the progress of relief efforts being undertaken by CRS so as to help determine how the Church in the United States can best respond. He is scheduled to return to New York sometime late in the evening of Sunday, January 24.

Catholic Relief Services has over 300 employees working in Haiti year-round, many of whom lost loved ones in the earthquake. Additional staff and support have been assigned to Haiti in light of the tremendous need that exists at this time. CRS has been present and working with the people of Haiti since 1954.

Archbishop Dolan will be travelling to Haiti via private jet, which is being donated by a generous benefactor. Accompanying him will be Ken Hackett, President of CRS, and Monsignor David Malloy, General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. CRS is the official over-seas aid agency of the USCCB. They will also be bringing some supplies with them on their visit.

Pro-lifers join virtual march on Washington

By Mary DeTurris Poust

Back when I was in high school, getting on a bus early every January 22 to travel to Washington, D.C., and march with fellow pro-lifers through the streets of our nation's capital to protest Roe vs. Wade was business as usual. In rain or snow or freezing temperatures, we would walk and pray and sing. It was a powerful experience, one that is repeated year after year by people who travel from much greater distances than I ever did.

But for many people, the trip to Washington is just not feasible. Now there' s a way for them to join the march -- at least virtually. Taking a page out of video games-meet science fiction, Americans United for Life (AUL) has created the Virtual March for Life. So far more than 36,280 people -- including yours truly -- have registered for a walk that promises to be much drier and warmer than in years past.

You simply register and choose an avatar, a virtual creation of yourself. (See, I told you it was like a video game.) When you finish, the program puts you with the other marchers on the National Mall. Too gimmicky? Perhaps. But it's also a powerful way to let people know that you would be there in person if you could. There are buttons that allow you to link the site to your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Click HERE to register or get more information.