The Whole of the Moon

Apropos nothing topical:

You know that song, "The Whole of the Moon" by the Waterboys? Well, I had always thought it was saying something that G K Chesterton might have said (although I had read that it might have been inspired by C S Lewis).

Well, I've found the passage from GKC that I'd been looking for:

'The globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant. He is always breathing, an air of locality. London is a place, to be compared to Chicago; Chicago is a place, to be compared to Timbuctoo. But Timbuctoo is not a place, since there, at least, live men who regard it as the universe, and breathe, not an air of locality, but the winds of the world. The man in the saloon steamer has seen all the races of men, and he is thinking of the things that divide men—diet, dress, decorum, rings in the nose as in Africa, or in the ears as in Europe, blue paint among the ancients, or red paint among the modern Britons. The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all; but he is thinking of the things that unite men—hunger and babies, and the beauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky. Mr. Kipling, with all his merits, is the globe-trotter; he has not the patience to become part of anything. So great and genuine a man is not to be accused of a merely cynical cosmopolitanism; still, his cosmopolitanism is his weakness. That weakness is splendidly expressed in one of his finest poems, "The Sestina of the Tramp Royal," in which a man declares that he can endure anything in the way of hunger or horror, but not permanent presence in one place. In this there is certainly danger. The more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about; dust is like this and the thistle-down and the High Commissioner in South Africa. Fertile things are somewhat heavier, like the heavy fruit trees on the pregnant mud of the Nile. In the heated idleness of youth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication of that proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. We were inclined to ask, "Who wants to gather moss, except silly old ladies?" But for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right. The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.

The truth is that exploration and enlargement make the world smaller. The telegraph and the steamboat make the world smaller. The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it larger....'

Heretics, "On Mr Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small"

And, the Waterboys:

I wandered out in the world for years
while you just stayed in your room.
I saw the crescent.
You saw the whole of the moon.

Video

Sex-selective abortion vs gender fluidity

Professor Wendy Savage, of the British Medical Association, reckons that "... if a woman does not want to have a foetus who is one sex or the other, forcing her (to go through with the pregnancy) is not going to be good for the eventual child, and it's not going to be good for (the mother's) mental health." (Story here.)

What's this? "[O]ne sex or the other"? As we all know, there are many more than two sexes! And, furthermore, we now know that one's sex isn't settled until, well, ever.

And yet Professor Savage is angry that "... some places won't tell the woman the sex of the foetus, which is outrageous." 

Maybe they're unwilling to assign sexes to babies based on antediluvian pseudoscience about anatomy.

Prospective parents who still, in 2017, follow such outdated opinions, should realise that a baby's physical characteristics no longer have the last word on what it will be.

Only after the child has made its selection should the parents consider termination...

Self-identification II

Further to this post about the goose who thought he was a duck, or rather, an actual duck, since that was what he believed. (Or was he a gander who thought he was a drake?)

... He thought he was a duck. So why does the BBC report persist in calling him a goose? Is that any way to honour his memory?...

Now we have a new case of people (some of whom should surely know better on account of their chosen identities) refusing to respect a man's self-identification:

If that's how he self-identifies, we must respect it, and to refuse to is surely bigotry.

The transfertile

There is a growing trend for people who are healthy and fertile to find doctors who will agree to render them infertile, perhaps with drugs or surgery. These are the transfertile. Infertile people trapped in a fertile body. Practices such as sterilisation, vasectomy, and taking a drug known informally as "The Pill" are shockingly widespread. We probably all know someone who is transfertile. And, amazingly, it is not difficult to find doctors who will facilitate these people's dreams.

Whereas doctors are meant to work towards healing people, now most are willing to do the opposite, and disable a perfectly healthy function.

There is a condition known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder, where "an otherwise healthy individual feels that they are meant to be disabled". Are sterilisation and contraception any different?

(Yes, I've written about this kind of thing before.)

The relevance of camels while discussing gnats

In the aftermath of the EU referendum, I'm seeing a lot of judgments being made about the fitness of those who voted Leave (of whom I am one), and worry about what lies ahead.

We're a bunch of racist xenophobes, apparently. And even if many of us are not personally, we've enabled a bunch of racist xenophobes to usher in a Fascist state.

And people are very worried about that prospect. (I do not relish the idea either.)

But, what do we actually have today? What are we tolerating? What doesn't bother us too much? In fact, what do many actually support?

Well, if you point out that, while worrying about racism and xenophobia, we're tolerating the murder of unborn children, you'll be told that that is a separate issue, totally irrelevant, beside the point.

Now, let's go back to the Gospel and imagine an exchange between Our Lord and a Pharisee. The latter is criticising someone over a gnat-like matter. Our Lord points out that the Pharisee is actually swallowing a camel.

The Pharisee says, "We're not talking about that camel! This is about a gnat! Don't change the subject!"

Or, maybe the Pharisee is telling someone to address a mote that is in his eye. Our Lord comes along and says, "Erm, what about the beam that is in your own eye?"

The Pharisee says, "This is about that man's mote, not my beam! My beam has nothing to do with it!"

We live in a world where abortion is not merely tolerated. It is defended as a right. And we vote for politicians who support it. Even if we oppose abortion personally, we still hold politicians who support it in esteem.They are not beyond the pale. Why? Why is racism, or xenophobia, the only thing that would put them beyond the pale?

If we tolerate abortion, we are in no position to take exception to xenophobia.

In support of Katie Price

What did Katie Price mean when she said that, if she had known her son was going to be blind, she would have had him aborted?

Clearly, she was referring to what she would have done before she knew what having a disabled son was like. Now she is glad she didn't know in advance, because she would have missed out on so much.

And, furthermore, now that she is in a situation where she does know, she would not only not abort a disabled child, but she would be willing to adopt one.

Her words, which some have complained would be upsetting for her son, are surely rather a tribute to him for what he has taught her.

Harvey has been a blessing, changing her whole outlook.

God bless them.

Self-identification

The media refer to Bruce Jenner as Caitlyn, and call him "her". Countless other stories of "trans-gender" people refer to them as their chosen sex.

Today I saw a story about Grumpy Gertie, the goose, who has been shot dead:

The white goose, known as Grumpy Gertie, was so well-known in Sandon, Hertfordshire, he appeared on the village's sign.
But he was found shot dead at the village pond on Sunday amid reports he was gunned down by a gang in a 4x4.

Now, this is a very sad story, but one thing in particular struck me from the news report:

Gay Ayton said: "He was a real character - he was hand-reared here and thought he was a duck..."

See that? He thought he was a duck. So why does the BBC report persist in calling him a goose? Is that any way to honour his memory? Even his "friends" from the village say he's a goose!

How insensitive.

Why not just sterilise nuns?

(That's not a serious suggestion, by the way.)

What seems to be a myth has provoked a fair bit of discussion and food for thought.

Pope Francis has revived the old story that Pope Paul VI gave permission for nuns to use contraception to prevent any rape-induced pregnancies. And, with what must be some rather deft acrobatics, he managed to conclude that therefore it would be all right for married couples to avoid conceiving babies with Zika-virus induced defects!

(Fr Z has provided some history regarding the myth here.)

Pondering my question above has helped me to understand why nuns (and any other women) shouldn't take contraceptive "medication" for contraceptive purposes. (Here is an old post of mine explaining why I don't think contraception counts as medicine.)

Contraception won't protect anyone from rape itself. (Indeed, mightn't the knowledge that someone is on the Pill increase the risk?) Contraception just attempts to eliminate the danger of conceiving a baby. So the intention is contraceptive. No double-effect there. It is not like taking the Pill for some therapeutic reason, knowing that there is an undesired contraceptive effect too.

Now, I can see that a consecrated virgin has a good reason for wishing to avoid pregnancy. She is not a married woman who must be open to life. But, the end doesn't justify the means, and as Pope Paul VI wrote in Humanae Vitae:

Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it...

Since medicine is meant to help you work better, whereas contraception seeks to stop something which does work from working, it would seem to be against nature.

And sterilisation has the same effect, achieved by surgical means. Mutilation, basically. And, again the double-effect won't justify it, because there is no health reason to warrant it.

So, I maintain that giving nuns contraceptive drugs, or sterilising them, is not justifiable.

What about some barrier method? Well, I'm not so certain on the morality or immorality of that. Since Fr Heribert Jone writes, "A woman sins gravely by expelling the seminal fluid or preventing its entry into the uterus. It is not sinful to do so if she has been the victim of rape or deception provided she does so before conception, since in this instance the semen is equivalent to an unjust aggressor," (Moral Theology, para 759), maybe a barrier would be permissible. Impracticable, though?

(This is leaving aside the matter of Pope Francis using an apocryphal (and mythical) story dealing with rape, to justify consenting spouses using contraception to avoid defective offspring!)

Bear in mind: these are the musings of an amateur.

The Hokey Cokey

... or Hokey Pokey, as it's known elsewhere.

(This post is apropos nothing topical, just something I've long pondered on.)

When I was young, my dad told me the Hokey Cokey mocked the Mass. The words Hokey Cokey being based on "Hoc est enim Corpus Meum" ("This is My Body"). That seems to be a well known theory, although it has been denied (for example, here).

It might all be an urban legend, but...

When I started attending Traditional Latin Masses half my life (so far) ago, it started making sense.

You put your right hand in... out, shake it all about.
- Perhaps a parody of the priest making the sign of the cross over the host and chalice at the Offertory.

You do the Hokey Cokey
- As per the famous theory, as mentioned already, about it being a parody of "Hoc est emim Corpus Meum."

And you turn around
- Priest turns to congregation and says "Dominus vobiscum."

Knees bend
- Genuflection.

Arms stretch
- Elevation.

Rah rah rah!
- Bells rung thrice.

Can those similarities really have come about just by accident?

Things prophets haven't said

Traditionalist (and I number myself among them) often quote this:

We are what you once were.
We believe what you once believed.
We worship as you once worshipped.
If you were right then, we are right now.
If we are wrong now, you were wrong then.

But is it all that persuasive really?

There can't be many people who have difficulty conceding that they used to be wrong but that they're right now. If I were a modernist, and a traditionalist used that motto in a discussion with me, I'd probably respond, "Yes, I was wrong then. Now, I've seen the light!"

What might be a more persuasive argument?

Perhaps the fact that we have been warned to beware of novelties, in scripture for a start:

For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables... - 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Notice the chronology. Truth first, being abandoned in favour of error. Not the other way round. 

In fact, I don't think I've ever seen any prediction that says that one day the Church will start getting things right after having been wrong for so long. Not that anyone has to believe in private revelations, but when none of them predicts that things are just going to keep getting better in the Church, it should make one think.

These days, I'm more interested in what prophecies don't say than what they do. Things like, "There will be a great Council, that will open the Church up to the influence of the world, and there will be a new springtime!" And, "The Church's liturgy will undergo immense improvements, allowing more participation by the people, and more involvement of women, who have been neglected for so long." Not forgetting, "Church buildings will be greatly improved by the removal of altar rails, statues, and the relocation of tabernacles to a less central position."

So on the one hand, we've had warnings that things will become very bad (a diabolical disorientation, as Sr Lucy put it), and on the other we've had no predictions that things will get better (except after a chastisement of some kind). Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will triumph eventually, but meanwhile there will be trouble.

Whose preference?

The subject of the liturgy is often reduced to being a mere matter of preference, but isn't how we worship more significant than that?

One might prefer burger and fries to salad, but does that make it superior?
One could prefer the Beatles to Beethoven, while still acknowledging the superiority of the latter.

So, while one may "prefer" the New Mass or the Traditional Mass, which one is superior?

This post from last year might provide a clue.

Pomp need not come into it though. I maintain that a Traditional Mass, offered in the humblest of surroundings, without music, is still superior to a reverent New Mass in a cathedral.

(The Divine Liturgy is also superior. I often think of detergent adverts:
We washed the Latin Rite in new improved Vatican II, but we used the original formula on the 
Eastern Rites. Let's see how they turned out!)

The changes matter. They matter to those who protest against them, and they matter to those who introduced them, otherwise they wouldn't have introduced them, imposing the new and suppressing the old.

The only preference which counts is God's preference. He "preferred" Abel's sacrifice to Cain's.

Abolishing suffering and disease

It would be wrong to wish someone suffering. (Although, maybe a little suffering might do some people good.) But might it be worse to desire a world (outside of Heaven) without suffering and disease? Such a world would be impossible anyway. It would be a tyranny with special sufferings of its own.

Eugenics desires to eliminate disease and suffering, or rather people who will suffer from disease. Heaven works because everyone in it is perfect. While we are here on earth, we have to contend with disease and suffering.

Imagine a world where suffering has been abolished. Where most people undergo (or have their offspring undergo) genetic treatments that will eliminate disability (or any offspring with disabilities). But, there will be some people who will resist such practices. They will have children naturally and accept any disabled babies.

They will be in a minority. They will suffer persecution in various forms. A society which thinks it has eliminated disease and disability will not welcome these inconvenient families who accept such suffering. These people who refuse to  consent to unethical and sinful procedures will be penalised. There will be a culture of ostracising imperfect people. Responsible parents will have made sure they produced healthy children. Irresponsible parents will show scant regard for the common good, by tolerating unhealthy children. There won't be a culture of compassion, because people will be expected not to need any. But there will always be a few spoiling it for everyone else!.

The word "compassion" means "suffer with". A world without suffering would be a world without compassion.

Are we nearly there yet?

Red Nose Day

Once again, Red Nose Day will be occupying another Friday in Lent, promising fun and frivolity in aid of charity.

For the moment, let's ignore the fact that Comic Relief isn't 100% sound from a Catholic perspective. Just imagine that there are no moral or ethical issues against it at all. All it should take to raise the millions of pounds it intends to raise is a 15 minute broadcast about the plight of poor people here and abroad. As is, the 6+ hours of daftness is just self-indulgence on the part of the celebs (who could raise the equivalent sum or more between themselves). Why do people need to be entertained in order to donate? Would they not donate otherwise? Is it that people will only give to charity on condition that they are amused?

What are people thinking of? If people were motivated by real charity, all that should be needed to raise money for a good cause, is telling them that money is needed and why.

Now to turn to the ethical problems. SPUC has this article from a couple of years ago:

Raising money for Red Nose Day means that some of that money will go to charities and projects that are inimical to building a culture that respects all human life from conception. Red Nose Day has made, and continues to make, grants that fund groups that advocate and promote abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage, such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the Terrence Higgins Trust.

No one wants to be a spoil-sport when it comes to fundraising for worthy causes, a good thing in itself. However, fundraising efforts should not be spoilt by having the money used to fund the destruction of human life.

It's not just Comic Relief, of course. Many other charities are kind of Trojan Horses, raising money for anti-life causes under the pretext of supporting good causes.

SPUC also has a charities bulletin (which could do with being updated), giving details of where various charities stand on pro-life issues.

Unrequited love

A young woman goes to the doctor. She shows him a photograph of a young man.

"Doctor, I am so much in love with this man. I can't sleep. I can't function at all. I want him. I need him. He's not interested in me, and it hurts me so much. I am suffering. I will die if I can't have him. Is there anything you can do for me?"

The doctor thinks for a moment and then informs her, "I can find this man for you. We have therapies we can give him and drugs. Possibly mild electric shocks and hypnotism. I can make him love you."

The doctor's assistant traces the young man and he is subjected to these treatments, and falls in love with the girl whom he marries. They live happily ever after.

And, because the doctor made the lady happy, so she was no longer suffering or suicidal, what he did was right.

I mean, if there are no moral objections to providing a woman with the child she so wants but can't have, why should there be anything wrong with getting her the man she wants? She's suffering, and it would be inhumane not to.

Herd immunity

I've been seeing a lot of articles about vaccinations over the last week, so I've been thinking about the issue of herd immunity as an argument to have one's children vaccinated. (I'm not addressing the separate issue of unethically-derived vaccines in this post.)

With the 3-parent baby issue, topical at the moment, you get supporters of the procedure talking about how children with mitochondrial diseases suffer and die, while simultaneously dismissing the arguments of opponents as being emotive. With vaccines it's that children might get diseases, suffer, and maybe die if they're not vaccinated, but if opponents say children sometimes experience adverse reactions to the vaccines, suffer, and maybe die, they too are being emotive!

Both sides use emotive arguments. Understandably so. To vaccinate or not to vaccinate: either way there are risks.

Another motif that keeps recurring in arguments between pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers is the matter of herd immunity.

Someone declares that she (it is usually a she in these discussions!) has refused to have her children vaccinated, owing to concerns about possible reactions.

Then someone else argues back that she should have her children vaccinated, to contribute to herd immunity.

Now hang on a minute! What this argument is effectively saying is, you should be willing to sacrifice your child for the sake of the common good!

In my opinion, the only reason to vaccinate one's child should be to protect the child being vaccinated. If a parent decides vaccination is too risky, she (or he) is hardly going to decide to do it for the herd. Would any parent who had concerns be persuaded to vaccinate his child because the herd could use some more contributors?

It is one thing for an adult to decide to take that risk for the common good himself. That would be a selfless decision. But to decide that someone else (specifically an infant) should take that risk is another matter altogether.

Here is something that Pope Pius XII said on the subject of Medico-Moral Problems in 1952, not specifically about vaccination but I think the principle is applicable to this issue too:

"In support of their view they appeal to the fact that the individual is subordinate to the community, that the good of the individual must give way to the common good and be sacrificed for it....
... It must be pointed out that man as a person, in the final reckoning, does not exist for the benefit of society; on the contrary, the community exists for the individual man."

 Guide For Living

Mitochondria harvesting

Our MPs have voted 3-1 in favour of "three-parent babies", or "mitochondrial donation". This procedure is apparently supposed to eliminate mitochondrial disorders. So that's all right then...

This is manufacturing bespoke human beings. It is tampering with the creation of human life. So you have 3 parents, some third-siblings, maybe some two-third siblings. If you're lucky, you might have a full sibling. And you probably won't know who your third-siblings are. And the next generation will have five or six grandparents...

And it won't be long before parents will be forced to ensure their children have no genetic illnesses. And then, is it that hard to imagine that, eventually, anyone who hasn't been created by this process will have to pay more for insurance?

This is eugenics.

Oh, and the embryonic donors of the mitochondria? Seems they're destroyed once their mitochondria has been harvested.

The Mass in art through the ages

(Edit: A friend observed that "through the ages" was perhaps a slight exaggeration, what with the images I found being mostly 20th century! So I'm adding some more, found by him, whom I thank.)

There have been some very powerful artistic depictions of the Mass over the years...






Hmmm. Res ipsa loquitur...

Blessed Pius IX

Blessed Pius IX, Patron of Overlooked Causes, pray for us!

Mortal sin prevention!

What a work then will it be for the interests of Jesus to prevent one mortal sin! Yet how easy! If every night, before we go to sleep, we begged our dear Lady to offer up to God the Precious Blood of her dear Son for grace to hinder one mortal sin, somewhere in the world, during that night, and then renewed the same offering in the morning for the hours of daylight, surely such an offering, and by such hands, could not fail to win the grace desired; and then each one of us might probably hinder seven hundred and thirty mortal sins every year...

So suggested Fr Faber in his book All For Jesus.

Well, it can't hurt and it's worth getting into the habit of doing!

O Mary, Immaculate Mother of Jesus, offer, we beseech thee, to the Eternal Father, the Precious Blood of thy Divine Son to prevent at least one mortal sin from being committed somewhere in the world this day.

(Or evening, or night, etc.)

Doctor, please break me

Imagine you go to your doctor complaining, "Doctor, it's my walking. It's quite good.  Is there something you can give me to make me limp?"

Or, "Doctor, my eyesight is pretty good. Could you give me some glasses so I can see less well? Better still, a blindfold would be good."

Or, "Doctor, it's my hearing. It's perfect. Could you arrange for something to be put in my ears, so things sound muffled?"

What would any doctor say to any of these requests? Is he likely to do what his patient asks?

To be honest, I've never tried asking, so I don't know for sure. But I would guess that he would say "No!"

Yet, when patients ask to have their fertility broken, doctors are only too happy to help. They'll give drugs to stop ovulation occurring normally, and they'll arrange for surgeons to tie up women's fallopian tubes, and break men's vas deferenses!

That is not what medicine and surgery are for. They are to fix things that are broken; that aren't working properly. Contraception and sterilisation do the exact opposite.

Topsy-turvy world we're living in.