- Bill C-384 (pdf)

There are people pro and people con.

Pro…
Most Quebec MDs in favour of legalized euthanasia: survey

In survey of its members released Tuesday, the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists found that 84 per cent of responders are ready for a public debate on the issue and 74 per cent “would certainly favour or probably be favourable” to euthanasia within a legal framework.

Euthanasia is already being practised, doctor says (in Quebec)

-Dr. Death comes to town this fall

Con…

- Doctor decries euthanasia bill

“We must not abandon these vulnerable people through assisted suicide and euthanasia, but instead embark on a quest to find better ways to maintain their dignity and quality of life”

Quebec doctors urge colleagues to battle euthanasia

- Say “No” to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide (pdf)

- Innocent would die

- DOSSIER EUTHANASIA — ASSISTED SUICIDE (Declarations and documents to help us in our reflection from the Catholic Church of Montreal)

- Canada’s Catholic Bishops Ask Parliament to Oppose Legalizing Assisted Suicide

- Letter asking Members of Parliament and all the people of Canada to reflect on the possible consequences of Bill C-384

“It is also legitimate for someone to refuse medical procedures that are found to be especially burdensome. But what is never acceptable is the direct and intentional killing of the depressed, handicapped, sick, elderly or dying,” Archbishop Weisgerber says.

And you ?

As Canadians, we have to think about this law and act to defeat it! We should protect the lives of others, the most vulnerable in our society.

Priests for Life of Canada is calling on “all parishes across Canada involved in this effort to defeat this legislation.” How ? Write a personal letter to your federal deputy or to the prime minister of Canada against this law! Post a personal letter as soon as possible !

“No one has survived this cancer. This illness will take you,” said Doctor Walter Chang to Audrey Toguchi in 1997 since, scientifically, there was nothing that could be done for her. (…)

Terminal cancer

In 1996, Audrey Toguchi, native of the Island of Oahu in Hawaii, was 69. “I had no idea I had cancer,” she told ZENIT.

“My husband noticed I had a lump after a fall — I had slipped some days earlier while cleaning the floor of my house. The family doctor said it was a bruise.”

The following year, the bruise had not disappeared, but had grown. After additional exams, a tumor was found in her left thigh. It was malignant cancer.

She underwent surgery a year later, but the cancer had already spread. “It was the surgeon who discovered on removing it that it was a very rare and aggressive terminal cancer,” she explained.

“Other oncologists who studied the case said that nowhere in the world was it recorded that a person survived this type of sickness,” Toguchi continued.

After another examination in September of 1998, the X-rays showed that the cancer had metastasized in her lungs. The doctors gave her three months to live.

Toguchi relates that she felt weak. She did not want any more chemotherapy or medical interventions. But she took up a devotion she had practiced from her childhood, as a good Hawaiian: “I have always loved Father Damien,” Toguchi explained.

“I have prayed to him all my life. That is why I visited Kalawao (where his tomb is located), Molokai and our churches over many years,” she said.

No doubt

In November of 1998, Toguchi began to feel much improved. Medical examinations revealed that the cancer was receding. Six months later, X-rays showed a complete regression of the metastasis, though she had had no therapy. The cancer disappeared entirely.

While for her doctors, there is no explanation — her own doctor, who is not a Catholic, affirms this — for Toguchi there is no doubt that it was the hand of Damien from heaven, interceding before God. Many prayers were said for years, both by her and her relatives, to this blessed apostle.

“When I was completely cured by the Lord’s love and Father Damien’s intercession, I felt very honored and grateful,” she said.

On Oct. 18, 2007, medical experts from the Congregation for Saints’ Causes examined the clinical documents. As is always the case for a canonization, believers and non-believers concluded with moral certitude that the cure was not only exceptional but “extra-natural.”

Then, the Commission of Theologians determined that it was a miracle, obtained by Father Damien’s intercession — an indispensable requisite to receive the title of saint. (source : Zenit)

A movie to see :
“Molokai: The Story of Father Damien”

Synopsis :

Exile to Molokai was the means with which leprosy was dealt with in the Hawaiian Islands during the late 1800s. Molokai was an untamed isle located between the islands of Oahu and Maui. Abandoned for all extents and purposes, the lepers attempted to scrape out a living in their squalor without outside aid or care. Enter the courageous Father Damien. He was the first priest to go to Molokai. And even though his bishop strictly warned him that “he must not touch anyone,” Father Damien risked his life and health to reach out to the suffering.

Gradually, Father Damien was able to gain the trust of the lepers. Additionally, and more importantly, his cries for additional help were heard and heeded by others. The success of his appeals was unbelievably dismaying to superiors who were more interested respect and riches than reaching out to the suffering.

Eventually, as expected Father Damien was also afflicted. This, however, only seemed to provide him with an even greater drive to ameliorate the conditions of his now “fellow” lepers. After collapsing during Mass, he was carried to the very hospital that he himself had established where he died. There is a touching seen when all gather to pray for him at the hospital’s entrance.

Holy father Damien, pray for us!

To visit the Auschwitz concentration camp is surely one of the most terrifying experiences that a man of our times can live.  It is pretty surprising to find a whole crowd of tourists that neither yell, nor run about, nor eat hamburgers or chips.  It is a recollected crowd, respectful and silent.  One can’t help but remain profoundly affected; the very blood in ones veins seems to freeze when one enters those barracks, where human beings were tossed together like the mere numbers of some sort of cruel accounting.  Everything is cold, sordid, inhuman.  The presence of evil, a mysterious but real presence, weighs down on the hearts of the visitors.  But in that landscape of endless grief, there is another barracks that is quite different.  It is the cell where Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan canonised by John Paul II, spent the last days of his life.  At the heart of the camp, in an atmosphere that is both heavy and closed-in, a hardened refusal of transcendence, one suddenly breaths hope, peace and joy.  It is as though one suddenly found in this corner a humanity degraded and stepped-on in the neighbouring ovens.  To enter into the cell of Maximilian Kolbe is like coming home; it is a place where one can discovers one’s own identity as a son of God.  I think this experience that I lived personally can be applied to the different cultural voyages of modernity.  Along these modern pathways, flanked by these ice-cold barracks where man is unable to find rest, there are also true  homes, households where we can stay without ones blood running cold.  Even if it would be erroneous to identify all of modernity to a barracks or to a family home, nevertheless, this study seeks to map out an outline of the principle modern currents, taking into account their openness or closure to transcendence, which is the primordial element that will transform a given current of thought into either a home or a barracks.  

It is a worthwhile read.  The original French document is here for download: Modernité et transcendance

Evening 1: Who is God?

• Powerpoint slides
• Audio presentation
• Question and answer session

Evening 2: If God is good, why is there evil in the world?

• Powerpoint slides
• Audio presentation
• Question and answer session

Evening 3: If God is good, and there is evil in the world, what has God done about it?

• Powerpoint slides
• Audio presentation
• Question and answer session

Evening 4: If God is good, and there is evil in the world, and God is doing something about it, how do we get with the program?

• Powerpoint slides
• Audio presentation
• Question and answer session

In his famous space trilogy, CS Lewis imagines a man who is kidnapped on earth and taken to a far away planet where no original sin had yet hit. He feels lighter on this planet and when he steps into the water, sea creatures carry him across, offering themselves for his transport needs. In this planet, even the trees sway out of his way so that he can walk easily through the dense forest.

It is an image of all of creation was absolutely at the service of man.

Then came a sort of devastating atomic bomb, and everything changed. That bomb was original sin, vividly recounted in Genesis 3,17.

It is a bomb that affects absolutely everyone. Nobody is exempt. Like Niagara Falls: all the water in lake Superior, lake Huron, lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario sooner or later goes over the edge. That’s a lot of water. It’s cold its powerful and it doesn’t care what it takes with it.

You may have heard the 40-year-old story recounted by archbishop Charles J. Chaput in his first book. He tells the dramatic true story of two children caught in the flow of Niagara on the Lake: the boy went over the falls but miraculously fell into an area below the embankment that left him with only a few bruises. His sister coming along like a bullet behind him was caught in the last second by a man who jumped into the river. While he held on to a friend with one hand, he grabbed the girl with his other hand, just as she swept past. Then he hung on to her until the people on the bank could pull them both to safety. The water at that point was chest-deep, moving very fast, and ice-cold. The riverbed is as slippery as greased glass. But he did it anyway, and he saved her life.

When it comes to sin, each one of us is like that girl. We’re swept along, beaten up, and paralyzed by a river of sin—our own sins, and the world’s sinfulness, flowing down all the way from Adam and Eve. It’s the river we call original sin.

Jesus Christ has stepped into the river of humanity to pull us out. And if we really want to arrive at conversion and happiness, it is necessary to put a spotlight on sin and see what we’ve been freed from. Look at Adam when he ran and hid himself away. He was ashamed, he was afraid to be really there in the presence of God. His relationship to God his Father had been broken. There was no longer the ease of communication, the understanding; it was as though the high-speed bandwidth had been severed and he was relying on dialup to download his entire hard drive. And the earthquake of original sin also affected his relations with Eve. The natural harmony they previously had now ended abruptly.

Genesis says they sewed fig leaves on themselves. Why is this? Was this some kind of prudish sort of Victorian morality? Cardinal Ratzinger describes this as an attempt to go back to the harmony they had before sin, where they could see each other in the light of God’s presence and in the splendor of dignity God had endowed them with in their sexuality. After sin it was as though they could no longer see each other for their true worth, but only as objects, so they covered themselves, trying to regain some semblance of what they had before.

But that weakness has stayed with us today. The earthquake has affected man in a different way than it has affected women, but both are equally devastated.

Putting the spotlight on our sin and loving the sacrament of reconciliation is really the beginning of conversion and a source of hope. That’s why Pope Pius XII famously said the sin of the Twentieth Century is the lack of the sense of sin.

It is true that all the saints felt themselves to be great sinners. They knew themselves, and they knew God. The Catechism says the same thing in a powerful passage underlining the fact that sinners were the authors of Christ’s passion:

CCC 598 In her Magisterial teaching of the faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that “sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured.” Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself, the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone:
We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for he is in them) and hold him up to contempt. And it can be seen that our crime in this case is greater in us than in the Jews. As for them, according to the witness of the Apostle, “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” We, however, profess to know him. And when we deny him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on him.

Nor did demons crucify him; it is you who have crucified him and crucify him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.

We should ask for the same sorrow that the saints had and let ourselves be moved by the fact that Christ died for our sins, he died for my sins, for me personally. You may have heard about the death in January 2007 of Elizabeth Fox Genovese a well-know American history professor. She died at the age of 65 after a long illness. She converted in 1995 partly out of her admiration for Pope John Paul II, partly on account of the growing horror at abortion and euthanasia, but also an account of all the pride and self-centeredness she said she had witnessed in secular academia. But as she recounted in her conversion story, the key was something more:

“A decisive moment in my journey in faith came when, one day, seemingly out of nowhere, the thought pierced me that Jesus had died for my sins. And, immediately on its heels, came the devastating recognition that I am not worth his sacrifice. Only gradually have I come truly to understand that the determination of worth belongs not to me but to him. God’s love for us forever exceeds our control and challenges our understanding. Like faith, it is His gift, and our task is to do our best to receive it.” (First Things 2-I-2007).

She realized that Christ had suffered for her, that it was possible in his humanity, intimately united to the Godhead, for him to do this.

We must look at him. We can picture him now in front of Anas the high priest. Our Lord has been apprehended, and mishandled. Anas realized immediately that this was a serene man without fear. It wouldn’t be too easy to simply condemn him through some sort of arbitrary judgment. So the old man interrogated him briefly with regards to his doctrine and his disciples. What did he preach? What was he trying to do?

“I have spoken openly to the World; I have always taught in the synagogues and in the temple, where Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said” (Jn 18, 20)

At that moment an over zealous servant to the high priest slapped him in the face and said to him: “Is that how you answer the high priest?” In fact he wasn’t at that moment the High priest, but he had been, so he continued to call him like that. That blow was the first time a human hand had struck the face of Jesus. Those there present didn’t see it, but all of heaven reverberated in shock. The Lord received peacefully this unexpected physical violence. It really is something low and terribly uncivil to strike a man with his hands tied.

The Shroud of Turin bears a sign of harsh blow to the right cheek, like might have been produced by a strong punch in the face; the cheek seems to be so swollen, the eye seems to practically disappear under the swelling. It could very well have been that blow that he received in the house of Anas. That man initiated the interminable physical offences that would only end with his ignominious death. Nor did the high priest reproach the action of the servant. It seemed good to him. So Jesus answered and said:

If I have spoken badly, declare this evil, but if have spoken justly, why do you strike me? (Jn 18, 23).

Let us indeed not forget that our faults and our sins were like the instruments of the Passion (CCC 598): the thorns, the nails, the hand that wounded him. How many of those thorns, those nails were really ours?

We can only really understand the mystery of sin when we recognize the “profound bond that exists between God and man” (CCC 386). Without the light of revelation we would not be able to really understand the mystery of suffering or sin, and we would fall to the temptation of explaining it all away, as the catechism says, “ …as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. Only in the knowledge of God’s plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another.”(CCC 387).

Let us think on the contrary that our deviations can actually “reach Christ himself” (cf. CCC 598). Our life is intimately intertwined with the passion of the Lord. How often would Jesus have said to us

“Why do you strike me?

Would it not help us to think that we had struck him everytime we sinned? Indeed meditation of the passion has made many saints. The simple aspiration, “I don’t ever want to strike you in the face Lord” would surely make him happy. We have all the saints of the church to help us. Here is how St. Josemaria Escriva invited the reader of The Way to console Jesus:

“Don’t be content to ask Jesus pardon just for your own faults: don’t love him just with your own heart…
Console him for every offense that has been, is, or will be done to him. Love him with all the strength of all the hearts of all those who have most loved him.
Be daring: tell him that you are crazier about him than Mary Magdalen, than either of his two Teresas, that you love him madly, more than Augustine and Dominic and Francis, more than Ignatius and Xavier.”

Those are some pretty heavy hitters whom we could certainly learn from.

The Onion has the answer. Of course, the article is a satire. But the truth is that many people do see the in-womb fetus as some sort of sub-human, alien life form (”It is just a ball of cells”).

Read the following pro-abortion arguments found on this forum and weep :

“I am for abortion in a case that the baby is sick and the parents can’t provide for the proper treatments/medications, in a situation of rape, or the mother is too young to have a baby( I believe you should be 18+). If for some reason a woman is having a girl and decides that she wanted a boy and gets an abortion i feel that is wrong because of the fact that every human being shall be treated the same and loved for who they are.”

“Abortion is bad like murder but w[h]at if a woman was raped and she became pregnant?? Put the baby up for adoption or make an abortion?? Adoption is really sad because sometimes the child will never know who their real parents are…”

“It’s a woman’s right to choose what she does with her own body. Pro-life people often say that you shouldn’t have sex unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences. Well, abortion is a way of dealing with it. Don’t like abortions? Don’t have one.”

“I find it highly irritating how pro-lifers don’t seem to give a **** about the mother at all and only seem to care about the fetus, which is unwanted. And the people who say things like ‘well you shoudn’t have had sex’ make me want to scream.”

The person who wrote this last comment has a point, at least regarding the attention and compassion pro-lifers should have towards women who are considering an abortion. (Cf. this excellent First Things article).

And this one actually made me laugh:

“Isn’t it cute how pro-lifers have to make up statistics in order to get people to support their cause? If abortion was really so evil, wouldn’t the actual facts be compelling enough on their own?”

Saint Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica (II ii, Q.15 art. 3), offers the only reason I can fathom for why most people don’t see abortion for the evil it is : sin makes you stupid.

(If you’re a sinner, you know what Aquinas says is true. If you don’t consider yourself a sinner, then it’s definitely true).

Fr. Rolheiser has a style of writing which is very easy to read, while conveying deep spiritual insights. He repeats himself in different ways along the book, in such a way that if you didn’t catch something the first time around, you will surely catch it the second time; and this is done without being annoying. In fact, it is very enriching to follow all his examples and explanations. The book is not so long, less than 200 easy-to-read pages in length.

The book is separated into 2 parts. The first part talks about loneliness in its most obvious way: as a problem we all face. One of the key insights in this part is the fact that life in the Western world has become more lonely because of the kind of society we live in: a culture based on individual responsibility, which encourages treating each other like disposable objects, being disconnected with nature so as to control it, never having enough time, running after money, … We were not made for this.

The second part of the book offers a Christian understanding of loneliness. It explains that loneliness is not only a problem, but if considered in light of the Scriptures and the mystics, is a way for us to look for what completes us, to yearn for God, a dynamic movement towards Him. This part shows clearly that nothing on earth will ever fulfill us, and that we will remain in this state of longing until the Lord welcomes us in heaven with Him.

I would like to boldly add something to this book, if I may. The book is wonderfully written, and I think everyone should read it; it makes us understand much of the world we live in and how to consider our own loneliness. What I would like to add is this: while it is true that we will never be fully satisfied here, I think that we yearn for God in steps. Because we’re not in heaven yet, we’ll just keep on yearning for more and more…and we will keep receiving more and more. And each blessing we receive gives us a glimpse of heaven, and brings us closer and closer to God…until nothing is satisfactory but to see Him face to face. The resolution of our loneliness begins on earth.

“And all of us […] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” -2 Cor. 3:18 (NRSV)

May you all move forward in loneliness, escalating from glory to glory until you reach Him!

“Sans l’espérance, vous ne rencontrerez jamais l’inespéré.” -Héraclite d’Éphèse

Rough translation: “Without hope, you will never meet the impossible (OR what it not hoped for).”

How quote is actually translated in English: “If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

I took the above quote from a French book I read a while ago, called “L’intégrale des entretiens NOMS DE DIEU d’Edmond Blattchen”, avec Colette Nys-Mazure: “Les ombres et les jours.”

Translation again: “The complete interviews NAMES OF GOD of Edmond Blattchen”, with Colette Nys-Mazure: “Shadows and Days.”

In short, this small booklet is an interview with the Belgian poet and writer Colette Nys-Mazure, who discusses her writings and the deep faith that permeates them; or, should I say, the deep hope, because that seems to be the central theme of her works. Despite losing both her parents at a very young age, she said she never gave into despair; in fact, her hope seems stronger because of the loss. What is her secret?

She tells Mr. Blattchen: (I paraphrase)

“From the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, “Hoping against all hope”. This is what the quote (above) is all about.”

“Hope is a prerequisite for finding the impossible. Hope is what makes you move towards it; otherwise, it won’t happen.”

“The impossible is both what we never thought or dreamed of, but it is also what will rise from the ruins, when we thought that everything was finished. Well no! Life begins again, and you meet the impossible. There is something full of fervour, something very convincing about this assertion.”

“Often, I walk in the dark, but I know the light will come back. As a child, I loved crossing tunnels in trains. You always end up coming out of the tunnel…”

Today is the feast day of St. Joseph (one of my favourite men and saints ever, which is why I posted the picture above, which captures the intimacy of the father-son relationship of Joseph and Jesus), and in today’s Scriptures we read the same passage that Mrs. Nys-Mazure referred to:

“[Abraham]—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’” (Rom. 4: 17-18)

Joseph trusted God so much that he acted on his dreams, no matter how impossible they seemed. God was the source of his Hope. Joseph was a humble man, but what astounds me more is his perfect hope in God. He knew he could hope in himself, in his ability as a carpenter, in his goodness to discretely dismiss Mary, in trusting and acting on the reality he saw… but instead he hoped in God, Whom he knew could “call into existence the things that do not exist”…like believing that the baby was Most Holy…like making him the father of the Father’s Son… like taking Mary as his wife…and acting on a reality he couldn’t see… His hope led him to believe God, even when it all seemed (and if you think about it, still sounds) impossible.

I would add to Mrs. Nys-Mazure’s words that hope becomes necessary, and grows, when things don’t go our way. Hope propels us to the impossible, making us beg for nothing short of the immensity and perfect fulfillment of God. We are simply not happy without the impossible…because that’s what we were made for!

What about us? Do we hope against hope? In our life, do we truly believe that God wants to give us…the impossible?!?

What is it that seems impossible for you? An “impossible” situation may mean something we want to fix but can’t, something that isn’t happening, something that we can’t stop from happening, dilemmas where answers just don’t come easily, … Believe it today, that the Lord will fulfill it for you in the most wonderful way! And I know that we won’t have to wait for heaven to see a part of it… The promise begins here… He will answer ALL our impossible hopes!

The first thing I’ve come to realise is that hospitals are supposed to be about Life. They are not about Death — that’s called a funeral home. Yes, there may be dying people in a hospital, but that simply emphasizes the point even more, because it presents a conundrum: why is there Death in a house of Life? But the fact that the presence of Death in itself creates a conundrum, rather than simply being part of the norm, only highlights the point that hospitals are meant to be about Life.

A second point: we cannot give Life. If we could, we could cure Death, and we can’t. Indeed, we can’t really cure anything, strictly speaking. It is the body itself that has the final responsibility to keep itself alive, and all we can do is help it along by creating conditions that favour the body in its struggle for Life. So we offer medications to kill germs, we set broken bones in casts, we cut out tumours, and we place people on respirators — but we do so, finally, in cooperation with the body, which still has to be the one that maintains the overall balance.

Finally, I’ve come to see more clearly is that a person is either alive or dead, and there is a world of difference between the two. There is no such thing as someone who is “half-dead”, and we should never speak this way. The body is an amazing thing, fundamentally oriented towards life, struggling for it in each moment. I know it is a circular definition, but one of the defining features of Life (it seems to me) is that it seeks to go on living. And this struggle is with us every day — the sick simply happen to be more acutely aware of the struggle, as it is tougher for them. Life, then, really is a miracle of sorts. We live an extremely hostile environment, when you think about it: germs fill every breath of air we breathe, and get inside our bodies when we eat, drink, kiss, make love, prick our finger, whatever. A significant part of what we eat is indigestible, and the air we breathe in, once used, becomes a poison we must breathe out. Accidents happen, and we get cuts and break bones actually fairly frequently. And yet, the body not only has a capacity to take in what it needs to live, and to eliminate the rest, it also has an amazing capacity to heal itself and to fight off invaders that seek to destroy it. In what is often a hostile world, the fact that Life is able to surge upward in us is truly amazing. And so the sick are never “half-dead”. Even if we know it will lose the battle in the end, as long as the body continues the struggle it deserves to be honoured with the adjective “alive”. To say otherwise dehumanizes the sick and the dying, as causes us to live in the illusion that we ourselves somehow are no engaged in the same struggle. We are, and the sick are actually our brother and sisters in Life, from whom we can learn a great deal.