Divine Beauty: The Byzantine Liturgy - The Blessing

Nope, they aren't 'Orthodox' - they are as Catholic as anyone, but merely follow their own distinctive (and gorgeous) liturgical and other traditions. These so-called Eastern Catholics also elect their own Bishops and follow their own legal code, all in perfect harmony with the Patriarch of Rome (that's the Pope for you). Here, some of their Bishops are seen blessing the congregation with the dikirion and trikirion, candlesticks with two and three candles, respectively, with which he makes the sign of the cross:

The trikirion symbolizes the Holy Trinity and the dikirion the dual nature of Christ: God and man.

(H/T Rorate Caeli)

On a related note: this evening I will be attending the annual meeting of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius in Copenhagen. The fellowship exists to promote unity between Eastern and Western Christians - mostly Orthodox and Anglicans/other traditional Protestants, respectively, but I'll try to have some Catholic viewpoint thrown in. In fact, the unity which the fellowship seeks is already effected in the Catholic Church, where Eastern and Western Christians are even now under the same roof, united in doctrine and with equal rights and dignity - but unfortunately most of those involved in the fellowship don't realize that that unity is already there and just waiting for them to join in.

Obama's Stall on Stupak Betrays His Duplicity

I thought the Stupak Amendment deserved a post for itself. This bill, introduced by pro-life Democrats, attempted to exclude most (though by no means all) abortion coverage from the health care bill of the US House of Representatives. I am not betting that it will get past the Senate, especially since President Obama is seeking to roll it back - this despite the fact that all polls show that the American people were overwhelmingly in favour of the amendment . He even has the gall to claim that it violates the status quo on abortion - which it does, but in the opposite direction of what he claims: since the status quo is that no federal money whatsoever goes to abortion (at least not inside the US), by allowing federal insurance to cover abortions in case of rape and incest it will in fact expand federal funding for abortions infinitely. But even this is not enough for the President, whose rhetoric about seeking 'common ground' on abortion rings more hollow by the minute.

His assertion that the amendment "restricts women's insurance choices" is a red herring since he is putting up a system that will create federally-sponsored health insurance ex nihilo; even if they do not cover abortions, they still will expand insurance coverage to many people who have never had it, so where is the restriction? Ah, unless of course he is betting on a great number of people who now have private insurance trading it for the public option - something left-wing legislators are hoping will eventually lead to a single-payer European-style system, a system which Obama has previously supported but now publicly claims he is not working for.

Either way, it just goes to show that the man can't be trusted. No more than your average politician, anyway. This is a guy who calls himself a 'Democrat' but doesn't care what the majority of the population wants or does not want.

(Actually, the amendment part aside, it was remarkable that the bill could get through the House at all since 72% of the US public opposed it in its current form. Not surprisingly, since the Speaker wanted to hide from them what was in the bill before it was voted on - even breaking a clear promise to publish it.)

Life Issues Update

Lots and lots of things have happened in the bioethical world since I last wrote, judging from my foremost pusher of bioethics news, the excellent Wesley J. Smith. First of all, the UK Department of Public Prosecution has issued new guidelines on prosecuting assisted suicide, effectively decriminalizing cases which it is not deemed "in the public interest" to prosecute, viz.: where the victim has a "terminal" or "severe and incurable" or "severe degenerative" disease and expressed a desire to be killed. This is not humane. It is a blatant abandonment of the weakest and most vulnerable in society; the people who have the greatest need to hear confirmed, over and over again, that their life is valuable, that things would not be better if they were gone. And it does nothing to ensure that these vulnerable persons are not subjected to insiduous erosion of their will to live ("You know, darling, I really love you, but I can see you are suffering so much... You know, you don't have to do this. There is a way out... I can help you...")

And more from the UK: a severely disabled baby boy with congenital myasthenic syndrome has been taken off his ventilator and allowed to die, even though he was awake and cognitively well-functioning. To be sure, CMS is a terrible and irreversible condition - but there is no way around concluding that this child was killed.

Canada has set up a 6-member commission to investigate the issue of euthanasia. Shock and horror, the Chairman and at least 2 other members are ardent euthanasia proponents, one is a Dutch euthanasia researcher, and the last 2 seem not to have any special interest in the issue. Selection bias anyone?

The UK is on a roll these days: a man has died after he was apparently starved and dehydrated to death in a hospital. Sound horrifying? That is in fact now an accepted and common procedure in the UK these days, it turns out. Certain terminally ill people, instead of being actually cared for at a hospice, are subjected to a 'care pathway', entailing that not only all medical treatment (except painkillers) but also all food and fluids are withheld from them and they are sedated for the last part of the ordeal (which can take weeks). As far as I am concerned, this is simply cynically speeding up their death to save costs. But in this case, things went even more wrong: what was thought to be a relapse of a lung cancer turned out on autopsy to be a simple pneumonia. As if the procedure wasn't bad enough in itself. And it most likely is not the first such incident.

Former leader of the Human Genome Project Francis S. Collins, who has written a decent book on the relationship between science and religion and is a Christian (Epsicopalian, I think), has been appointed to head the NIH in the US. I was convinced by the sincerity of his religious beliefs in his book, but I thought he was wishy-washy on some issues. Indeed, he has stated that he supports therapeutic cloning, embryonic stem cell research and even eugenic abortion. Which begs the question, has the great scientist found a way to determine that embryos are not human or merely a way to determine the fastest way to gaining the top biomedical job in the US?

On a more positive note, assisted suicide bills have been defeated in South Australia (by the narrowest possible margin - one MP had a change of heart at the last minute, citing a troubled conscience) and New Hampshire. Also, a former Director of a Planned Parenthood facility resigned her post and began working for the pro-life cause after she viewed an ultrasound of an abortion (she also claimed that the facility were being told to aggressively push for more abortions rather than conducting prevention programmes since abortions generated more income). Finally, Switzerland may outlaw suicide tourism, even though assisted suicide will probably still be legal for Swiss citizens.

The war for the dignity of human life is raging on all fronts (also ones that are not covered here, of course, but since I am a medical person, these are my special concerns). Next summer, I will probably be joining the fray. I hope that I will be allowed to get on with my job and save some lives in my own country and abroad, but it is becoming increasingly probable that I will one day find myself being forced to act against my conscience for the sake of some phoney 'right' dreamed up by a biased committee. If it so happens that I am persecuted for this, I will gladly accept it to expose the illiberality of our supposedly tolerant society.

Gearing up again...

Well, time to get this blog up and running again. I am ashamed that it has been almost 2 months since I last wrote a post - I have been extremely busy, and on top of that I suddenly developed an awful distaste towards writing posts myself, even though I've been quite active on other blogs. I have even been admitted onto the authoring panel of the, if I may say so, excellent Danish blog Katolsk Tradition which aims to help restore authentic Catholic Christianity in Denmark.


Most of all, I am amazed to see that in my absence I have gained two followers - of whom one is the Caveman himself!!! VSC, you are very welcome but damn, that's something to live up to. (The other one is of course a nutter who runs a completely ludicrous blog which screwed up my browser when I checked it out, so I will block him if he attempts to write anything.)

Do Women Have Souls?

It is a well-known fact that up until at least the sixteenth century, Christian theologians were still debating whether or not women have souls.

At least, I have heard this assertion several times from different people, so it must be true.

Or is it?

A young scholar, Valentius Acidalius, was working as a teacher in Silesia, and, like many young scholars, he was short of money. He thought to turn an honest penny by publishing a “diverting” pamphlet. In Latin the word homo, like the word man in English, primarily means “a human being, male or female, young or old,” but has the secondary meaning of “adult male.” Valentius thought it would be fun to use this ambiguity to “show” that in the Bible only adult males have souls. If he thought the pamphlet would amuse, he was grievously wrong. Simon Geddicus, a Lutheran scholar, launched a mighty counter-pamphlet entitled A Defense of the Female Sex, in which he proposed... to “destroy each and every one of the arguments put forward by Valentius,” [who] took a seizure and died.

The pamphlet, however, often bound with the refutation by Simon Geddicus, survived, and it appears that it was published at Lyons in France in 1647... [T]he offending book caught the attention of Pope Innocent X, who put it on the Index of Prohibited Books (Decree of June 18, 1651). So much for the allegation that the Church holds that women do not have souls.

But that did not stop this terrible misunderstanding from spreading to anti-Catholic bigots who were only too willing to believe it. Read the rest here.

If you repeat a lie enough times...

Murder of Pro-lifer Exposes Pro-choice Bias

So, it happened. Just a few months after the US went berserk over the murder of abortionist George Tiller, an anti-abortionist protestor has been shot dead. And yes, it has been confirmed that the murder was due to the fact that the murderer did not like his protests.

Now, it does sound as if this murderer was a complete nut. He certainly doesn't seem to have had any connection with any Pro-choice organization. Pro-choicers are making a great deal out of this - while in their uproar over the Tiller shooting they conveniently downplayed the fact that his murderer was also a nut without any formal connection with Pro-life organizations, choosing instead to blame the Pro-life movement as a whole for the killing.

At that time, some people opined that the Department of Homeland Security had been right to issue warnings about the prospects of violence perpetrated by "right-wing extremists". The National Organization of Women labeled the act a case of "domestic terrorism". President Obama issued a condemnation, while the former president of Planned Parenthood called on him to "immediately outline an action plan to increase federal protection for providers and clinics".

It will be interesting to see how this current episode plays out in the media over the coming days. As of today, CBS has not reported the story. I wonder if the media will be publishing allegations about "left-wing domestic terrorism" and whether the President will make a statement.

But one thing is the news media. When Dr. Tiller was murdered, I looked through a considerable number of internet forums where pro-lifers were derided for not being strong enough in their condemnations and even for being hypocrites when they condemned the murder. Well, now if you click into the combox at the über-liberal Huffington Post, you will discover some nifty comments such as these:

"If some weirdo was waving signs depicting aborted fetuses outside my kid's school, on a regular basis, I'd be a bit peeved, too. In my case, I'd probably just give the twisted f*ck a well-deserved stomping, but many people lack my exceptional self-control."

"Being in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing sometimes brings about an abrupt end."

"To use a school for his vile tirades, I say he got what was coming to him. Now if only the protesters outside funerals and churches could only get a little of the same. No pity here!"

"One less birther pro life crazy."

"Sorry, some people are a waste of time and space and there are only so many strawberries to go 'round."

CMR has more from earlier in the day. Now, most of the comments at the Huff are civil and condemn the killing. So did most of the pro-lifers who commented on the Tiller murder. A great deal were, in view of Dr. Tiller's very publicized and unapologetic work to end the life of little babies in the womb, rather indifferent but stated as a matter of course that violence was never a solution to the problem of abortion. A few expressed real hatred of Tiller and even glee at his murder. This was very sad to see and was rightly picked up upon and condemned. However, the above comments show clearly that pro-choicers need to acknowledge that there are problematic people on their side of the aisle as well. They must acknowledge that hypocrisy and disgusting attitudes towards other people is certainly not the prerogative of Conservatives or religious people. Each side must acknowledge its failings so we move beyond name-calling and start tackling the real issue at hand, which is not whether the persons on this or that side are morally superior, but which value we should assign to the lives (for they are alive) and rights of the babies in the womb - or foetuses or whatever we want to call them. The morality or otherwise of abortion is not determined by the virtues and failings of those who are for and against it, but by its objective nature.

Just Following Orders

I don't even know how to begin reporting this revolting and outrageous story. So without further ado:

"Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday. Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early. They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment."

"Just following..." Now where have we heard that one before?

But it gets better. Listen to this nasty bit of nitpicking:

"Medics allegedly told her that they would have tried to save the baby if he had been born two days later, at 22 weeks. In fact, the medical guidelines for Health Service hospitals state that babies should not be given intensive care if they are born at less than 23 weeks."

So - two (2) days later and the doctors would have agreed that he would have had a chance of survival - even though the 'guidelines' say this is not so until a week later? If they are willing to show a latitude of 7 days, why not 9? This is simply a disgusting show of bureaucratism. You can laugh at this kind of thing if it happens at a post office where the clerk complains that your stamp slants at 2 degrees too much, but here we're talking people's lives!

There is no doctor with respect for his job and profession who makes decisions on whether to intervene or not based on arbitrary limits composed by bureaucrats. Doctors may, and very often do, decide that treating a particular patient is not feasible - but they do it by drawing on their theoretical knowledge and clinical experience and applying it to that particular individual patient in front of them! Doctors are not machines, where you insert patient data into one end and out the other pops a prescription. And any doctor who acts like he is such a machine is not fit for his profession, which is not so much a job as it is an art, as the ancients acknowledged.

And now for a bit of background knowledge on this curious 'guideline':

"Guidance limiting care of the most premature babies provoked outrage when it was published three years ago. Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child's 'best interests'."

We'll return to that phrase presently. Now spot the non-sequitur here:

"More than 80,000 babies are born prematurely in Britain every year, and of those some 40,000 need to be treated in intensive care. The NHS spends an estimated £1 billion a year on their care."

So bloody what? I bet the NHS spends about the same amount on wages for top-level managers and 'commissions' like the one that crafted these rules.

"Medical experts say babies born before 23 weeks are simply too under-developed to survive, and that to use aggressive treatment methods would only prolong their suffering, or inflict pain."

Except that, like so much of what 'experts' say, that's not true:

"But weeks before they were published in 2006, a child was born in the U.S. which proved a baby could survive at earlier than 22 weeks if it was given medical treatment. Amillia Taylor was born in Florida on October 24, 2006, after just 21 weeks and six days in the womb. She celebrated her second birthday last year."

And now the clincher:

"Doctors believed she was a week older and so gave her intensive care, but later admitted she would not have received treatment if they had known her true age."

Time to revise the guidelines, you might think? Oh no. Remember, there's money involved.

"However, experts say cases like Amillia Taylor's are rare, and can raise false expectations about survival rates. Studies show that only 1 per cent of babies born before 23 weeks survive, and many suffer serious disabilities."

I actually happen to think that 1 percent is not too bad. Anyway, the job of doctors is first and foremost to save lives, and this we should always try to do if at all possible. Only when it is not possible, or when intervention is arguably riskier than non-intervention, do we settle for next best, i.e. alleviate suffering. In fact, the most unsettling thing about this story is perhaps that the doctors didn't even want to do that - they allegedly wouldn't even see the baby once it was born. Because they were afraid that they would be overcome by the impulse to treat it, perhaps? Anyways, to refuse to treat anyone out of hand on the basis of purely arbitrary criteria is beneath a doctor and an insult to the people he is supposed to serve - as human beings, not as so many appliances on an assembly line.

I was made aware of this story by Matt Archbold over at CMR, who, though a little off the top sometimes, is always good for some incisive comments. Like this, referring to the 'best interests' comment in the guidelines:

"Pardon me but I get a little tired of hearing the government decide what's in the 'best interests' of people."

And further:

"Pro-choice punks are all about allowing the mother to decide if the baby's allowed to live or die until the mother actually decides she wants the baby to live. Then and only then does the government jump in and say sorry, now we actually care about what's in the best interest of the baby. Then the mother doesn't get to choose. And guess what? The government decides it's in the best interests of the baby to die."

He even goes so far as saying this proves that Western civilization has turned into a "death cult". I won't go that far, but it certainly shows that when you're a poor little foetus, there is just no way you can win in this world.