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Nostra aetate (6) ... two recent popes

Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment - Tue, 01/19/2038 - 04:14
In 1980, addressing a Jewish gathering in Germany, B John Paul II said (I extract this from a long sentence): " ... dialogue; that is, the meeting between the people of the Old Covenant (never revoked by God, cf Romans 11:29) and that of the New Covenant, is at the same time ..." In 2013, Pope Francis, in the course of his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, also referred to the Old Fr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com10
Categories: All, Clergy, Traditional

Nostra aetate (5): the recent Papal Magisterium

Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment - Tue, 01/19/2038 - 04:14
The sort of people who would violently reject the points I am making are the sort of people who would not be impressed by the the Council of Florence. So I am going to confine myself to the Magisterium from the time of Pius XII ... since it is increasingly coming to be realised that the continuum of processes which we associate with the Conciliar and post-Conciliar period was already in operationFr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com0
Categories: All, Clergy, Traditional

Nostra Aetate (4): Is the Two Covenant Theory a necessary revolution?

Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment - Tue, 01/19/2038 - 04:14
We have seen that the Two Covenant Theory, the idea that Jewry alone is guaranteed Salvation without any need to convert to Christ, is repugnant to Scripture, to the Fathers, even to the post-Conciliar liturgy of the Catholic Church. It is also subversive of the basic grammar of the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments. Throughout  two millennia, in Scripture, in Liturgy, in her Fr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com7
Categories: All, Clergy, Traditional

Nostra Aetate (3): the post-Conciliar liturgical Magisterium

Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment - Tue, 01/19/2038 - 04:14
Lex orandi lex credendi. I have been examining the Two Covenant Dogma: the fashionable error that God's First Covenant, with the Jews, is still fully and salvifically valid, so that the call to saving faith in Christ Jesus is not made to them. The 'New' Covenant, it is claimed, is now only for Gentiles. I want to draw attention at this point to the witness of the post-Conciliar Magisterium of theFr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com13
Categories: All, Clergy, Traditional

Nostra Aetate (2): S Paul and his sungeneis

Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment - Tue, 01/19/2038 - 04:14
S Paul loved his fellow Jews, his 'kinsmen' and believed "the gifts and call of God are irrevocable". He believed that at the End, those among them who had rejected Christ would be brought in to the chosen people. He believed that they were like olive branches which had been cut off so that the Gentiles, wild olive branches, could be grafted in. But, when the fulness of the Gentiles had entered Fr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com3
Categories: All, Clergy, Traditional

Nostra Aetate (1)

Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment - Tue, 01/19/2038 - 04:14
Since the Council, an idea has been spreading that Judaism is not superseded by the New Covenant of Jesus Christ; that Jews still have available to them the Covenant of the old Law, by which they can be saved. It is therefore unnecessary for them to turn to Christ; unnecessary for anybody to convert them to faith in Christ. Indeed, attempting to do so is an act of aggression not dissimilar to theFr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com11
Categories: All, Clergy, Traditional

Why the Rich Feel So Poor

Henrymakow.com - Mon, 12/02/2024 - 20:50
gates-coupon.jpeg
During a trip to Hong Kong, the billionaire duo decided to grab lunch at McDonald's. To Gates' amusement, when Buffett offered to pay, he pulled out a handful of coupons.
 


Warren Buffett is a billionaire. He gets his meaning from making or saving a dime. Most of the super-rich suffer from spiritual poverty.




Whether we are poor or rich, money holds us prisoner. The rich feel poor because of GREED. No matter how much they have, their identity ("feeling good, important, secure") was forged by a society dedicated to making and spending more money. 



Money is supposed to free us from material concerns. Paradoxically it does the opposite. We become its prisoners.





"Enough is a little more than one has."    Samuel Butler


Updated from May 4, 2022 and Oct. 6 2023
by Henry Makow PhD

 
Few people take a rational approach to money. 

This would involve calculating how much money they need in relation to how much money they have, and how much money they make.

Rather, people tend to focus on their last 2%. Did their "net worth" increase or derease on a given day?

Depending on their tax bracket, this may involve their last $100, $1000, $10,000, $10 million or $10 billion. They ignore their big bank balance or stock portfolio. They always feel poor. 

Money is supposed to free us from material concerns. Paradoxically it does the opposite. We become its prisoners.

We are satanically possessed. This means we identify with money rather than our Divine soul. We are money rather than God's personal representative on earth. The more money we have, the bigger and better we feel. These values are inculcated by our satanist-controlled mass media.

I am addressing the roughly 50% of my readers who, according to my Gab poll, have enough or more money than they need. I don't fault the other 50% who don't have enough or are broke for feeling oppressed.

henry-david-thoreau-wealth.jpg


Paradoxically the rich suffer from a spiritual impoverishment.

The more they identify with their money, the smaller they are. The more money they have, the smaller they are.

In the case of the Illuminati bankers, this inner poverty is toxic. They are a cancer that threatens to destroy mankind.

They want to "absorb" (their word) all the world's wealth leaving nothing to support humanity. They want it all!

We're indoctrinated to seek money. Within limits, money is a great motivator and measure.

I know someone who doesn't have to work. He works because he has nothing else to do, and it makes him feel productive and rewarded.

Another friend is independently wealthy from investments. He retired a couple of years ago but is returning to his old profession out of sheer boredom.

PERSONAL

I am as satanically possessed as anyone. I have had a lifelong struggle with greed. At age 74, I am just starting to master this demon.

Recently I did the calculation above and realized that I have more money than I'll ever spend.

My spending habits were formed during eight years as a graduate student living on roughly $10,000 per year. I really don't need or care about material things.

Paradoxically, this lack of concern for money did NOT stop me from developing a gambling addiction. When I didn't have much money, I didn't care about it. When I sold Scruples to Hasbro in 1986, I became a money manager and thought my game smarts would extend to the stock market. MISTAKE.

Scruples had been a labor of love. I did it because It was a workshop on everyday morality.

After my windfall, I became satanically possessed (i.e. GREED.)  If someone asked how I was, I said, "I'll ask my broker."  

We have to be on guard constantly because the voice in our head often is the devil!

Then another voice arises from our soul and says, "Cool it, you greedy moron."


You gamble with money you'll never spend. More or Less. What is the point? You don't even know your balance.

We have a Mexican cleaning woman who supports an extended family. I have never met a woman whose smile exudes such warmth.

Surely, these human qualities represent our true riches.

Money is the lowest common denominator. People today are consumed by money. They are charmless. 

YouTube is packed full of "how I got rich" stories.

While the world descends into Communist tyranny or faces a nuclear catastrophe,  they act like money will save them.

For people who have enough, freedom lies in eschewing money. Just not caring about it.

Can you do that?

Categories: All, Conspiracies, History

Assessing ‘Fiducia supplicans’: the first 100 days

The Catholic Thing - 5 hours 18 min ago

The controversy it stirred in the Church in the West by the DDF’s “blessings” document has somewhat abated, but opposition to it and how it was implemented continues apace. Even some supporters of the Vatican document are disappointed that it seemed to lack synodality, in that it “appeared to circumvent the entire synodal process,” suddenly handing down the declaration “from above.” One Jesuit notes the document’s “Jesuitical” trait of forbidding the blessing of a union while at the same time approving “a joint blessing of a couple in that same union.” 

 

The post Assessing ‘Fiducia supplicans’: the first 100 days appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

Prayer for Holy Week

The Catholic Thing - 5 hours 18 min ago

Love me in my willingness to suffer
Love me in the gifts I wish to offer
Teach me how you love and have to die
And I will try
Somehow to forget myself and give
Life and joy so dead things start to live.
Let me show now an untrammelled joy,
Gold without alloy.

You know I have no cross but want to learn,
How to change and to the poor world turn.
I can almost worship stars and moon
And the sun at noon

But when I’m low I only beg you to
Ask me anything, I’ll try to do
What you need. I trust your energy.
Share it then with me.

The post Prayer for Holy Week appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

Archdiocese of Baltimore ministers to Key Bridge collapse crew

The Catholic Thing - 5 hours 19 min ago

The Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Apostleship of the Sea will minister to the crew of the Dali. The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed at about 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday after the Dali, a 900-foot container ship, collided with one of its major support pilings. Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said he was saddened by the loss of life and asked for prayers for all involved. Apostleship volunteers, many of whom are Knights of Columbus, visit merchant ships at the Port of Baltimore Monday through Saturday, dropping off rosaries, scapulars, and prayer cards.

 

The post Archdiocese of Baltimore ministers to Key Bridge collapse crew appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

The case against the abortion pill

The Catholic Thing - 5 hours 19 min ago

Abortion advocates tell us that abortion is safe. By becoming legal, so the story goes, hidden violence is made safe, and it must be protected because, without abortion access, women will die. But medical abortions (the abortion pill) induce an unnatural process, one in which up to 20 percent of women experience a complication – four times the complication rate of surgical abortion.
 

The post The case against the abortion pill appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

Maltese cardinal “over the rainbow” for synodality

The Catholic Thing - 5 hours 19 min ago

Cardinal Mario Grech, the Secretary General of the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops, used an interview with a Swiss newspaper last week to lay out a vision for the Church. He believes synodality can help the Church move from “uniformity of thought” to “unity in difference,” while reshaping the exercise of authority within global Catholicism. “I always imagine the Church as a rainbow, with the colors that are not excluded but, together, create harmony.”
 

The post Maltese cardinal “over the rainbow” for synodality appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

‘But the Beholder Wanting’

The Catholic Thing - 5 hours 19 min ago

One of Saint John Henry Newman’s best-known sermons is entitled “The Invisible World.” In it he articulates one of the core convictions of his life and thought. He says of this invisible world: “though unseen, it is present; present, not future; it is now and here; the kingdom of God is among us.” Unseen, yet present, because intimations of this other dimension abound everywhere. Indeed, in his Apologia, he speaks of the “sacramental principle,” “the doctrine that material phenomena are both the types and instruments of real things unseen.”

Nowhere is this truth more actual than in the sacraments themselves, and, to a surpassing degree, in the Eucharist, “the sacrament of sacraments.” Here the gifts of earth and the work of human hands are not spurned much less annihilated, but are transformed, transubstantiated into the very body and blood of the Son of God. In its unduly neglected “Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests,” the Second Vatican Council proclaims the Church’s rich Eucharistic faith:

The other sacraments, as well as every ministry of the Church and every work of the apostolate, are joined with the Eucharist and are directed toward it. For the Holy Eucharist contains the entire spiritual treasure of the Church that is, Christ himself, our passover and living bread. Christ, through his flesh, made alive and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, offers life to men and women who are thus invited and led to offer themselves, their labors, indeed all created things, in union with Christ. Hence, the Eucharist shows itself to be the font and the goal of all preaching of the Gospel. (no. 5).

Yet, one of the sad marks of our secular age is a paradoxical double loss. Not only do we struggle to find access to the other dimension, that is, the spiritual, but we also seem impervious to the true sense of the material. Our sacramental sense has atrophied. Indeed, these two losses may be intricately connected.

Charles Taylor, whose A Secular Age magisterially traced its emergence and accomplishments, has also diagnosed its perils. He speaks tellingly of the constricted horizon of its “immanent frame” – absent any sense of transcendence. He goes beyond detached analysis to lament “buffered selves” who flee community and relational commitment to one another.

But Taylor also employs another term, even more suggestive and troubling: excarnation. To a great extent secular men and women, for all their surface materialism, live deeply disembodied, disincarnate lives. They often disdain the very tradition that bore them. They disaffiliate from communities that nourished them. They fantasize in the virtual sphere of the Internet, rather than risk face-to-face bodily encounters that alone can foster fulfillment. And, finally, in a last desperate attempt at excarnation, they strive to marginalize vulnerability and death to the point of destroying the body by drugs or suicide.

Then, venturing beyond the philosopher’s ordinary purview, Taylor recommends to his fellow Christians the one true remedy. He writes: “[I]n a world where objectification and excarnation reign, where death undermines meaning. . .we have to struggle to recover a sense of what the Incarnation can mean.”

To recover the true sense of the spiritual, we must rediscover the mystery of the material, its sacramental reality. It may be our failure to enter deeply and respectfully into the material that inhibits our discernment of the spiritual. For, as Tertullian taught centuries ago: “caro salutis cardo” – salvation hinges on the flesh. The only salvation from ex-carnation is in-carnation.

Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, 1606 [Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan]

In the final chapter of his book, significantly entitled “Conversions,” Taylor celebrates those “pioneers” who discovered new paths to transcendence beyond modernity’s stunted imagination. Among them is Gerard Manley Hopkins, priest and poet, whom Newman himself had received into the Church. Hopkins’s poetry is a sustained paean to the multi-dimensional richness of concrete particulars. Without once devaluing their material grandeur, he records the signals of transcendence they emanate, he espies the intimations of the Creator their very being broadcasts.

His poem, “Hurrahing in Harvest,” recapitulates his intense appropriation of Newman’s sacramental principle:

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic – as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! –
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

In Luke’s account of the encounter of the two disciples with the risen, but unrecognized Lord, the revelatory actions are all bodily. Jesus walks with them, he incorporates them into the history of their people, he transforms their fear of bodily suffering and sits with them in fellowship. Then “he took bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” (Luke 24:30) And, only at this supreme sign of incarnational communion, were “their eyes opened.” (24:31) At the end of a long mystagogy, no longer is the beholder wanting.

Perhaps today we need to behold yet more boldly, cast our gaze even farther. The sacramental reach of the Eucharist extends beyond even Hopkins’ imaginative powers. Its scope is caught by Pope Francis towards the conclusion of his encyclical Laudato si’. Francis confesses:

It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures. The Lord, in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter. He comes not from above, but from within, he comes that we might find him in this world of ours. In the Eucharist, fullness is already achieved; it is the living center of the universe, the overflowing core of love and of inexhaustible life. Joined to the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the whole cosmos gives thanks to God (236).

No hint of excarnation here.

The post ‘But the Beholder Wanting’ appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

Is America a Rogue Superpower?

AntiWar.com - 5 hours 21 min ago

“Unipolar” used to mean that the United States was, at least in theory, alone in leading the world. Now “unipolar” means that the United States is alone and isolated in opposition to the world. In global affairs, a hegemon is a nation that leads because it has the consent of the other nations who believe … Continue reading "Is America a Rogue Superpower?"

The post Is America a Rogue Superpower? appeared first on Antiwar.com.

Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

Gaza War Is Pushing Support for Israel to Historic Lows

AntiWar.com - 5 hours 22 min ago

On March 14, Sen. Charles Schumer, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, gave a major speech on the Senate floor saying the Israeli government under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been “too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.” Schumer … Continue reading "Gaza War Is Pushing Support for Israel to Historic Lows"

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Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

Gloria’s Surrogacy Story: From Contract to Conception

For Gloria, “once contracts were completed” the intended parents, “very quickly changed their personality” and Gloria wanted to back out, reaching out to her caseworker (recall the support person) multiple times, but Gloria felt nothing but pressure to keep going:  

And as much as I wanted to back out, the agency then starts to pressure you into not backing out… I had called the caseworker multiple times saying, you know, I just don’t think I can go through with this and I was constantly threatened with breach of contract and ‘you’re going to have to pay this back. You’re going to have to pay the lawyer fees, the health insurance policy, and the medical clearance back’. So, I mean, I felt like I had no choice but to continue. That only got worse as the pregnancy progressed.

Feeling pressured, Gloria continued and an embryo created from a “donor” egg and the intended father’s sperm was transferred into Gloria’s womb. The perfect example of third-party reproduction where two different women are used to create a child for someone else, truly muddying the waters of lineage and origin for the child in question and increasing the risk of health complications in life for both women. This article won’t get into specific risks  for egg-donors or the ethical problems of such a practice, but readers should be well aware that women have lost their fertility and lives “donating” eggs to “families in need”. Further, surrogate mothers are often ill-informed about the risks of carrying a child from a “donated” egg. 

Two things stick out to Gloria about the embryo transfer. First, she was misled about the number of available embryos the IPs had available. Some IPs have more than one embryo transferred at a time into the womb of the surrogate to improve success, increasing the chance for multiples and also  increasing the risk of complications to the surrogate mother and children she carries. Other IPs only transfer one embryo at a time, but have embryos waiting on ice to use in case of failure.  “It’s always nerve wracking, and it was more nerve wracking because I hadn’t been told that this couple only had two embryos created.”  In other words, there were only two chances for Gloria to become pregnant; Gloria was told they had six. Therefore, if the IPs needed to create more embryos, Gloria would have to wait and be locked into a contract while waiting, a process that can take up to a year or more. Bottom line, Gloria was lied to.

 Secondly, “embryo transfer day was the first time meeting the intended father in person” and although the transfer went well, a private interaction with the intended father left her “mortified”, “violated” and “uncomfortable”.

 And that is really the moment I truly realized that I should have gone with my gut. Like this journey is only going to get worse. I immediately came home and I called the caseworker, aka my support person, and she laughed it off. She said, ‘he’s just being silly. Ignore it.’

Gloria certainly didn’t laugh it off, but she had no choice but to continue. The transfer was a success. She was pregnant. 

This is part three of a five part series. Over the several weeks we will be releasing a write-up based off of our exclusive interview with Gloria. 

Watch the full interview with Gloria on our YouTube channel.

The post Gloria’s Surrogacy Story: From Contract to Conception appeared first on The Center for Bioethics & Culture Network.

Categories: All, Lay, Medicine

Ask Chris Tollefsen: An Ethics Advice Column

Public Discourse - 9 hours 22 min ago

Today, I answer one of four questions sent in by a single reader. It is a timely but complex question, and answering it precludes answering that reader’s other interesting questions, or the questions sent in by others, some of which I hope to address in the future. 

The reader writes:  

Are there any circumstances in which pregnancy termination could be acceptable if the baby is pre-viable/unviable and termination protects or preserves the mother’s health? 

The most common example of this is ectopic pregnancy. But the scenario I see often as well is pre-viable premature rupture of membranes, or PROM (meaning the mother’s water breaks before the baby can survive outside of the womb) at seventeen weeks, for example. 

There is no clear path forward for women in this situation. Generally, women are counseled with different “options,” including terminating the pregnancy or inducing labor at that time, versus expectant management under close surveillance (i.e., doing nothing and waiting to see what happens). I feel more comfortable with the latter option because of the small chance that this pregnancy could reach viability and thus the baby could survive. 

My question is: if mom began to exhibit signs of sepsis during this time while the baby still had a heartbeat, would it be acceptable to induce her labor and thus end the baby’s life (as it would likely not survive the labor process and definitely not live outside the womb)? There are other, less common, medical circumstances that present this same ethical dilemma, but I guess my question is essentially the same. Is it okay to prioritize mom’s life and health in these situations? 

The author describes two situations. In the first, a pre-viable child faces a very high risk of death because of premature rupture of membranes (PROM), but the mother’s life and health are not yet at high risk. In the second case, in which the mother begins to show signs of sepsis, the risk to the mother is increasing. The most significant of such cases are sometimes called “vital conflict” cases. Both the mother’s and the child’s life or health are at serious risk and only the risk to the mother can be mitigated. How should these situations be ethically addressed?   

An important guide for thinking about this question is “Concluding Pregnancy Ethically,” issued by AAPLOG, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In writing about the variety of difficulties that can be faced in pregnancy, the authors say that “many women’s health advocates and . . . many physicians do not seek alternative paths that could support maternal health during a pregnancy, but instead choose to end the pregnancy out of fear or blind adherence to what they are taught.”  

So, for example, in the first situation described by the reader, where the child is at risk but the mother is not (or not yet), the mother might be encouraged to undergo an abortion on grounds that continuing the pregnancy until its natural resolution might be emotionally or psychologically difficult. Similar approaches are advocated when the child has an abnormality that threatens to shorten his or her life. Rather than carry the pregnancy to its natural resolution (when sometimes, at least, the child will live for a few hours, days, or even longer after delivery), the mother will be encouraged to abort in order to resolve the situation.  

Likewise, in vital conflict situations, mothers are encouraged to undergo surgical abortion rather than what AAPLOG calls “artificial separation,” typically induced delivery, which will save the mother but probably result in the child’s death. The child is likely to die in either case; does it matter how that death is brought about? 

The starting point for all deliberations on this issue should be this: it is always morally wrong to intend the death of an innocent human being. Thus, any intervention in the pregnancy that seeks to end the fetus’s life, even for the sake of protecting the mother’s life or health, is not to be chosen. Many interventions that I have described above do seem to fail in this regard: they involve ending the pregnancy by ending the child’s life. Those should not be chosen. But they do not cover all the possibilities. 

I won’t here give in-depth attention to the question of ectopic pregnancy, on which much has been written. But the principle that guides the treatment of ectopic pregnancy is essential to considering the author’s question. A common way of treating ectopic pregnancy, in which the embryo is implanted in the fallopian tube, creating a lethal threat of tubal rupture, is to remove part of the tube with the embryo inside it (salpingectomy). This inevitably results in fetal demise. Is this also ruled out by our just-mentioned starting point? 

It is not: the death of the embryonic child is not intended in the removal of that child from a location in which he or she will be unable to mature to viability and at which his or her presence creates grave risks to the mother’s health. Morally speaking, the death is a side effect. So removal is not automatically ruled out of moral consideration. 

Of course, the removal of a child from her environment, with death as a side effect, does not automatically make removal morally correct; doing anything that has a lethal effect on another must also be fair if it is to be morally upright. And so one must ask: is a mother who has her ectopic pregnancy addressed by salpingectomy being unfair to her child? And the answer again seems to be negative: the mother could reasonably say to her child, “If I could save you, I would; but I cannot, and am pursuing the only path available in which only one of us perishes.” There seems to be no violation of the Golden Rule here. 

I’ll suggest below that there are additional ways in which fairness plays a role in these contexts, but this is a good start: when both the mother’s and child’s life are at risk, and only the mother’s life can be saved, it is not unfair to do so, and is morally permissible so long as the child’s death is not intended. 

So let’s now consider cases of premature rupture of membranes (PROM) and other cases where both mother and child are at risk (such as extreme hypertension, partial molar pregnancy, and others; see “Concluding Pregnancy Ethically,” page 11, for a more comprehensive list). Medical professionals must act as soon as there are signs of sepsis in order to protect the life of the mother. Does it matter whether her life is saved by an intervention upon the body of the child, such as in dilation and curettage (D&C) or dilation and extraction (D&E) methods, both of which dismember the fetus, as opposed to induced labor, which takes longer but will result in an intact, though deceased or dying, fetus? 

Most of the philosophical literature on this topic by pro-life authors is concerned with the question of intention: is the death of the child intended if a method of extraction is used that physically and lethally impacts that child directly? Arguments about the well-known “Phoenix” abortion case, in which a placentectomy (detaching the placenta) was performed and the child dismembered in the course of extraction, have divided Catholic and other pro-life thinkers over whether the child’s death was intended. 

Similarly, one might worry that a D&C or D&E to remove a pre-viable child from a mother suffering blood loss from hemorrhage would involve intentional killing, because of the direct and lethal impact of the intervention upon the child.  

I have expressed doubts about such analyses of intention elsewhere, and do not propose to rehearse them here. Reflection on the AAPLOG document has led me to see an important potential shared ground between those who do and those who do not think that these surgical procedures inevitably involve an intention to harm or kill the child. 

Consider what AAPLOG says in response to the question, When is it acceptable to induce labor for a life-limiting fetal anomaly? AAPLOG questions the use of the common description of such an anomaly as “incompatible with life,” because, in the case in question, the fetus is alive. The anomaly, such as trisomy 13, trisomy 18, or anencephaly, will, however, certainly limit the child’s life, bringing it to an untimely end, and so should be described as a “life-limiting” anomaly. 

But consider what steps we would take for a child of two, or five, or nine, who had developed a life-limiting condition such as cancer. Let us suppose we know that cancer is incurable and inevitably lethal. The remaining days, weeks, or years of the child’s life will be a time of both immense grief and of celebration of the life that is still present in our child. They are also, to some extent, days of hope. While we would not unreasonably prolong life through the use of expensive and invasive medical interventions, we also would not hasten death, even as a side effect. And so, by extension, when expectant waiting is possible for a pregnancy’s natural resolution, that seems like the fair response to the value of our child’s life: what we would not do to our born children (hasten their demise), it would be unfair to do to our unborn children. 

And further: what parents would not, even at some cost of time, convenience, and personal risk, attempt to preserve their born children from a violent form of death, even when a more peaceful form of death was inevitable? 

The parallel to vital conflict cases is clear: do not too quickly assume that death is inevitable. Do not too quickly assume that active rather than passive harm needs to be inflicted, even as a side effect. Do not too quickly assume that an intact corpse is impossible. These are all assumptions we would avoid in thinking about our born children. 

It is wrong, even when the mother’s life is endangered, to treat that mother’s child as a hostile intruder or a malignant bit of tissue in need of removal.

 

Similarly, the approach taken by the physician can either reflect or fail to reflect such concerns. It is wrong, even when the mother’s life is endangered, to treat that mother’s child as a hostile intruder or a malignant bit of tissue in need of removal. Much more respectful, I think, is the doctor who says: “We need to act fast to save you and I’m afraid your baby won’t make it. Who would you like to come in to say goodbye to the baby with you?”

We are extraordinarily fortunate in the developed world that we have the medical resources to make the patience that such approaches require possible. As AAPLOG notes, 

In countries with modern healthcare infrastructure, medical science is usually advanced enough to support the maternal patient through the 24 hours or less typically required for such inductions. If need be, blood product replacement and intensive care can be employed to protect the maternal life to achieve successful induction of an intact fetal body without resorting to fetal dismemberment. 

The question of intention remains important in places without such resources: what are the limits to the permissible treatment of vital conflict cases when a delay in extraction will mean the death of both child and mother? But such cases (we should be grateful) are rare to nonexistent for us. 

To return, then, to our reader’s question: there do seem to be reasons, especially reasons of fairness and parental love, not to hasten the process of inevitable but natural separation when a pregnancy is in distress but the mother’s life and health are not yet compromised. This seems true even when there is very little likelihood of the pregnancy’s proceeding to viability. And when things progress further, toward the existence of a genuine vital conflict case, there are reasons to prefer induced labor, when possible and safe, over surgical removal regardless of one’s views on surgical removal and intention. The sacrifices we would make for our born children to prevent a hastened, although inevitable, death, or to ensure an intact rather than a compromised body of a loved child, point the way for us here. 

Submit your own ethical questions to Chris! 

Image by Feng Yu and licensed via Adobe Stock

Categories: All, Organisations

US, Japan To Initiate Huge Defense Treaty Upgrade With Eye On China

Zero Hedge - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 23:40
US, Japan To Initiate Huge Defense Treaty Upgrade With Eye On China

The United States and Japan are poised to unveil their largest defense treaty revision in decades. The FT has reported that President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are soon to "announce plans to reorganize the U.S. armed forces in Japan to strengthen the development of operational plans and training of the U.S.-Japan at the summit in Washington D.C. on the 10th of next month."

Crucially the new agreement is expected to invest the three-star commander of the US Forces in Japan with more operational authority. As it currently stands, and following the development of the US-Japan Security Treaty first signed in 1960, the US commander is required to coordinate approval for operations with US Indo-Pacific Command based out of Hawaii. 

US Indo-Pacific Command/Flickr

All of this comes amid the backdrop of China-Taiwan tensions being continually on the rise, and as North Korea flexes its military might in response to joint US-South Korea drills on the peninsula.

Japan currently hosts an estimated 54,000 US military troops plus another at least 8,000 US civilian contractors. Recently there were fears that a Western troop presence would be expanded in Japan with the proposed opening of a NATO office there, but the plan was nixed after strong protestations from Beijing.

Analyzing the coming upgrade to the US-Japan defense treaty, one regional report explains: "This review responds to criticisms that it is inconvenient for rapid response in case of emergency because of the distance between the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii and the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which are 3850 miles away and have a 19-hour time difference."

Prime Minister Kishida has made it a theme of the past couple years that Tokyo is committed to making great strides at becoming an unambiguous regional and "strategic leader" as a "security provider in the Indo-Pacific." However, Japan officials have long emphasized a stronger armed forces primarily for the sake of 'deterrence' - something which Washington has encouraged. Naturally, China doesn't see these developments as merely for deterrence.

President Joe Biden has nominated Air Force Maj. Gen. Stephen F. Jost to take command of U.S. Forces Japan, according to a Pentagon news release Monday.https://t.co/84Q2tSBKqp

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) March 27, 2024

The past two years has also witnessed a flurry of activity between the US and Japan at numerous levels of government especially focusing on an overhaul in the U.S.–Japan defense posture and strategy. There's also been a plan in motion for a restructuring Marine Corps forces stationed on and around Okinawa.

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/27/2024 - 18:40
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

Baltimore Coal Exports Blocked After Bridge Collapse

Zero Hedge - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 23:20
Baltimore Coal Exports Blocked After Bridge Collapse

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Baltimore Port’s coal exports are likely to be blocked for weeks after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday, according to a Pennsylvania coal trading firm.  

The bridge collapsed early on Tuesday after a cargo ship lost power and slammed into the construction, which crumbled within seconds and will disrupt navigation near the Baltimore port, which is one of the biggest coal export terminals in America.

Baltimore is the nation’s second-largest coal exporting port after Norfolk, Virginia, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In 2022, about one-fifth of U.S. coal exports left through Baltimore.

The port of Baltimore is also one of the 20 largest ports in the U.S. and handles both coal and petroleum products.

Following the bridge collapse, up to 2.5 million tons of coal exports from Baltimore could be blocked for up to six weeks, Ernie Thrasher, CEO at Pennsylvania coal trading firm Xcoal Energy & Resources, told Bloomberg.

“You’ll see some diversion to other ports but the other ports are pretty busy,” Thrasher added. 

“There’s a limit on how much you can divert,” said the executive, whose firm works with several coal suppliers. 

Globally, the disrupted exports are unlikely to have a huge impact on coal prices, but many coal cargoes from Baltimore are typically headed for India, so there the impact could be felt along the supply chain, Thrasher told Bloomberg.

At any rate, the bridge collapse has already disrupted coal shipments and delivery times.

For example, rail company CSX, which owns the Curtis Bay coal pier in Baltimore, told Reuters on Tuesday that existing coal customers should expect “potential shipment delays.”

Coal producer CONSOL Energy said vessel access in and out of the CONSOL Marine Terminal, located in the Port of Baltimore, has been delayed. As of Tuesday morning, the company did not have a definitive timeline of when vessel access or normal operations will resume.

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/27/2024 - 18:20
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

Goyim Conceded Defeat in 1882

Henrymakow.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 23:01

Adolf_Stoecker.jpg(Left, Adolf Stoecker (1835 -1909) was the court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm II, a politician, 

and a German Lutheran theologian who founded the Christian Social Party and attempted to
 roll back Jewish control. He helped organize the 1882 "Anti-Jewish Conference.") 

Is this why Dresden was so maliciously destroyed Feb. 14, 1945? 
 
 
 
  A Dresden conference shows how Jewish hegemony was a fait accompli 142 years ago and explains why the West's racial cohesion and Christian heritage are under vicious satanist attack. 

Read this and ask yourself, "Could Hitler have come to power without Masonic Jewish complicity?" 




(Note - This is a key article I re-post every year as I have many new readers.) 

 


--The Secret Masonry is setting up "our own, to all appearance, off position which in at least one of its organs [Nazis] will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards." (Protocols of Zion, 12.11)
 
---But no man said anything about him [Jesus] openly for fear of the Jews. (John 7:13)
 

 

 
 
 
(Slightly revised from Jan 6, 2016 & July 22 2022 ) 

by Henry Makow Ph.D.


The last significant effort to defend Christian national values was the "First International Anti-Jewish Conference" held in Dresden in September 1882.

The conference attracted 300 prominent businessmen, aristocrats, politicians, clergy, lawyers, physicians, farmers and intellectuals from Germany, Austria, Hungry and Russia. They produced a manifesto addressed to "the Governments and Peoples of Christian Nations Threatened by Judaism" which shows how Jewish hegemony was a fait accompli 142 years ago, and explains why the West's racial cohesion and Christian heritagehave been destroyed. 

FINANCIAL AND CULTURAL INVASION

The Manifesto begins by saying Europe has been invaded by a foreign race more dangerous and insidious than Arabs, Tartars or Turks in the past because of "its means and objectives."

Jewish "emancipation" following the French Revolution ("Equality, Fraternity, Liberty") removed protections against "a race whose first and foremost thoughts and energies are everywhere aimed at putting other nations in the moral and material shackles of slaves..."

"According to the Jews' religious and national traditions, all of these peoples were created merely to serve them. The principle of equality was also applied to a race that does not wish to be equal with us, that considers itself a people privileged by God and [regards] the rest of mankind as lower beings, impure animals. The principle of fraternity was also applied to a race that does not even acknowledge non-Jews as neighbors and fellow human beings and according to whose Talmud non-Jews are enemies destined for eradication."

merkel-b-nai-b-rith.jpgLeft. Merkel receives an award from her masters.
 
"Moreover, cheating, stealing from them, bleeding them dry, bringing ruin upon them, perjuring against them, dishonoring, and even killing them constitutes an activity pleasing to their God. Small wonder, therefore, if modern liberalism, identifying more and more with the ascendant Jews, has taken the shape of pseudo-liberalism. In the Jews' hands, it has turned into a convenient tool for realizing their plans for world domination and putting irons on the European peoples."

As a result of Jewish monopoly on government and finance, "the farmer, the big landowner, the industrialist, the artisan, the merchant, etc. , have all gotten caught up in material dependency upon Jews...they were forced to turn into their obedient servants, their train bearers. What's more, the Jews hire influential men who are active in public life to fill well-paid positions at banks, railways, insurance companies, etc. These individuals are thus virtually kept as Jewish vassals and are the most zealous and influential supporters of Jewish power in the legislatures and governments. "

As a result of Illuminati Jewish instigated wars, "the governments of some indebted countries have become nothing more than Jewish institutions, Jewish collection agencies. This explains the complete inactivity of these governments with respect to the Jewish question and also their hostile behavior against their own populations in favor of Jewry."

THE MASS MEDIA

Due to media ownership, "until recently no newspaper in Central Europe would have dared to speak the truth vis - à - vis Jewry. Thus the Jews have become absolute masters, fabricators of public opinion. Any complaint raised against them, however, justified it may be, is suppressed. Any article that addresses the subject of Jewish dominance to the slightest extent is done away with."

Political advancement "is dependent upon the favorable position of the Jewish press...As a result, intellectual slavery and moral cowardice vis - à - vis Jewry is one of the most characteristic features of our age." 
 
Ambitious Christians  "become train bearers of Jewish power; they turn into traitors to their own nation and race and thus to their own blood relations. In many countries, the Jews have adulterated the system of [Freemason] lodges, stripped it of its essence, and degraded it into one of the most dangerous and effective instruments of Jewish power."

"Mainly by means of the press, Jewry increasingly undermines the Christian religion, which ... during Roman times,... saved the European Aryan race from moral bankruptcy, on the one hand, and semi-civilized barbarity, on the other, and also regenerated it. It did so by setting the civilization and culture of the European Aryan race on firm religious, moral, and social foundations."

"Christian religion is the most powerful reaction against Jewish tendencies to achieve world domination. It is an insurmountable protest against the elevation of the Semitic above the Aryan race, and so it is only natural that the Jewish clan is a sworn mortal enemy of both the founder of this religion and the Christian religion itself.

Accordingly, Jewry can only firmly establish the superiority and rule of the Semitic race when it has managed to defeat the natural reaction opposing it and to destroy the institution of Christianity."

CONCLUSION

The 1882 Manifesto deftly describes the impotence of Christian leadership which is just as obvious today. There was no "Second International Anti Jewish Conference." The participants recognized they were fighting a lost cause. They did not propose measures because "this nation of parasites has become much too deeply ingrained in the body of our societal and state life for this first congress to operate under the delusion that its potentially detailed propositions could be carried out today."

during.jpegThis was in spite of the fact that Eugen Duhring, left, laid out a detailed program the previous year (1881) in his book "On the Jews." Ironically, it required the Illuminati Jewish-sponsored Nazis to enact many of Duhring's proposals which were similar to racial policies in effect in Israel today.

The rise of the Nazis led to the genocide of about six million German antisemites (i.e. Nazis) in WW2 and some 50 million other non-Jews. Given the 1882 assessment, do you think the Nazis could have achieved power without Illuminati Jewish sponsorship? As in chess, often you sacrifice a player (i.e. non-Zionist Jews) to win the game. 

Generally, the tone of the Manifesto gets more petty and racist, tarring all Jews with the same brush, saying all Jews are cosmopolitans with no loyalty to country or attachment to land, incapable of honesty, hard work or scientific and creative originality, driving farmers to destitution with their usury. 
 
While I agree with the Manifesto's description of Organized Jewry, & its goals, many if not most ordinary Jews were patriotic, hard-working and wanted to assimilate. An estimated 100,000 Jews served in the German army in WW1, and 18,000 won the Iron Cross. 12,000 died in action. In the 1930's, 60% of all German Jewish marriages were interracial. The Illuminati had to create Hitler to force them to go to Israel.

Christian leaders should have encouraged the process of Jewish assimilation already underway. Instead, the 1882 Conference concluded that the only solution was expulsion. 
 
"Europe belongs to the Christian peoples and therefore should not be the testing ground for the hunger for power of any hostile, domineering, non-Christian national element. The history of past centuries amply proves that legal decrees restricting the Jewish race - no matter how strict they are - do not achieve the desired result."

Whatever we think of this Manifesto, it does provide a unique historical perspective on our world today. We live in the twilight of Christian civilization which has suffered a series of colossal failures and defeats disguised as just wars, civil rights, diversity, sexual liberation, feminism, gay rights, migration, etc. But this perspective can strengthen our resolve to oppose the further degradation of society by the satanist Illuminati.


--------
RELATED - German Jews Would Have Backed Hitler 
------------- 25% of Germans, 42% of children are from Migrant Backgrounds
Makow -  Anti Semitism has Respectable Pedigree
---------    World War One- First Christian Holocaust 


 
Categories: All, Conspiracies, History

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