Culture of Life

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

2 hours ago, EowynW said:

Did you like your diaphragm? I have a fem cap but still haven't quite mastered it yet. 

I had used contraceptive sponges a bit back in the 90's, before they were taken off the market in the United States, and I think that helped me get used to my diaphragm fairly quickly. I got faster at putting it in quickly and accurately the longer I used it. I used it for about 6 years before we started actively trying to conceive, and in between the birth of our first child and TTC our second. Mine were Ortho All Flex diaphragms, made of latex. They came in different sizes; I had to get a larger size when I gained weight and after I gave birth. I couldn't feel it when it was in and my husband never said anything one way or the other. 

I didn't mind waiting to take it out very much and I liked that I could put it in ahead of time. If I knew ahead of time that we would likely need contraception (I'm trying to be more discreet than Lori Alexander  ), I could be prepared, unlike a condom.

One thing for anyone considering a barrier method to remember is the obvious one--it only works if you use it. Our first pregnancy (ended in a very early miscarriage) was the result of passion overtaking common sense. (It can't work if you don't use it.) In our case, we were a married couple who had talked about having children, so an unplanned pregnancy wasn't the end of the world. But anyone in a situation where an unplanned pregnancy would have more serious consequences needs to weigh up their options. Or just plan on being more diligent than we were that time.  

 

[Cleopatra7]

After learning about the Duplessis Orphans in the latest Dillard thread, it occurred to me that we need a thread about Catholic Culture of Life Fails. The phrase "Culture of Life" was coined by John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical "Evangelism Vitae":

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html

Since brevity was not wit for JPII, the culture of life can be pithily summed up by being anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-war, anti-embryonic stem cell research, anti-death penalty, and pro-organ donation. In American Catholic discourse, the anti-abortion plank  considered the most important aspect of the culture of life to the extent that even bringing up the anti-war or anti-death penalty aspect of it is regarded as changing the subject or co-operating with evil. Conservative Protestants have gotten on board with the culture of life discourse, and it was a favorite phrase of GWB during his tenure in office. All of this culture of life rhetoric sounds quite nice in theory, but when put into action, it leads much to be desired.

Mother Teresa is considered by many Catholics in the West to be the face of the culture of life, but the care she provided left much to be desired:

https://medium.com/@KittyWenham/mother-teresas-sainthood-is-a-fraud-just-like-she-was-eb395177572

Then there was that time the Catholic Church was involved in a baby selling ring:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15335899

And the other-other baby selling ring:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/chile-catholic-priests-investigated-stolen-babies

No, wait, the other other other baby selling ring:

http://www.thejournal.ie/us-adoptions-ireland-1950s-royal-irish-academy-3150953-Jan2017/

And of course, the Tuam baby scandal:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39192744

All of these incidents indicate that the culture of life rhetoric doesn't really translate into a respect for life in "actually existing Catholicism," especially if the lives in question are scorned as "fallen women" and "illegitimate children." I think this discrepancy comes from Pope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical "Casti Connubii," in which the pontiff says, "We are sorry to note that not infrequently nowadays it happens that through a certain inversion of the true order of things, ready and bountiful assistance is provided for the unmarried mother and her illegitimate offspring (who, of course must be helped in order to avoid a greater evil) which is denied to legitimate mothers or given sparingly or almost grudgingly."

https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html

This passage basically says that the state and church should help single mothers and their children out of Christian charity, but the money used for their upkeep should really go towards "respectable women" and "good families" instead. This distain for unmarried women and their children particularly comes through in the Tuam baby scandal, which is a  good example of how attitudes enshrined in decades old documents continue to have repercussions in the realm of public policy.

[Carol]

Mother Teresa used to be one of the people I admired most in this world.  As a counselor I sometimes started group therapy asking people who they would most like to meet.  There were always different answers, from deceased family to movie stars to statesmen/women.  Occasionally someone would ask me and I always replied, "Mother Teresa and Bob Newhart".

I thought she was an incredible human being from the time I first read about her.  She was compassion come to life, selfless and determined.  Nothing got in her way of helping the abandoned poor and dying on the streets of India.  She was a legend to me.  I went to Catholic School taught by Nuns and Brothers and remember one of the Brothers told me he went to India to her home for the dying to help out.  He recounted that he had just met her when another nun came up to her and told her they had raw sewage spewing from a pipe that she couldn't get it under control.  Mother Teresa told her she would take care of it.  This Brother recounted that he later found Mother Teresa cleaning up the sewage with her bare hands, working alone.  She clearly was a saint.

Quite a few years later, because of my mom's work for Right to Life, she(mom) was invited to meet Mother Teresa at a private gathering in Washington DC  of pro-life groups.  Mom knew how much I admired her and offered me her ticket to attend in her place.  I didn't go, perhaps it was being around so many pro-life hypocrites, I'm not sure.  What I suspect is that my concerns about Catholicism had been seeping into my life for so long that the dam was near breaking.  I didn't go.

A number of years ago I read a commentary about Mother Teresa that was very unflattering.  It stated she gave no pain medication to her dying patients even though she had the money, through donations, to buy it.  She would not allow it as she felt the dying needed to suffer in order to see god.  That strikes me today as so horrific, as they they hadn't suffered enough.  As if their poverty was their fault and she was going to send them to heaven after they had paid for their sins.

It's a trite thing to say the scales fell from my eyes but, they really did.  I don't have the admiration for her that I had.  What she did was cruel in the extreme.  She foisted her beliefs on people under the guise of helping them.  They were doubly betrayed, by her and their fellow men.  I really hope that if there is a heaven, they're there because they certainly earned it. 

I think Mother Teresa was a very flawed individual who believed that what she was doing was saving lives for Christ.  However, in saying that, I can't get past what I feel is sadism on her part.  She was judge and jury.  The dying died her way.  That's not compassion, not what Jesus portrayed.  She failed a simple test and I am sorry that she is now recognized as a saint.  The Catholic Church rushed to canonize her, likely to capitalize on her story because they really needed a feel good one after all their recent scandals.  They should have done a better job in their research.  

[NachosFlandersStyle]

I'm kind of glad that they have the notion of the "seamless garment" because at least in theory it should guilt some of the pro-lifers into caring about other issues, but in practice there are so many Catholics whose "respect for life" begins and ends with illegalizing abortion. It turns out you CAN buy into in some of the church's teachings without believing the rest-- and it's the most conservative Catholics who are the worst offenders.  And even still they have the gall to turn it around on nonbelievers, like if you don't want to ban abortion then it logically follows that you must hate your fellow man. I can't STAND the "culture of death" rhetoric. It's so disrespectful to assume that anyone outside your group is leading an empty, hateful existence devoid of meaningful relationships. It betrays a lack of compassion that undermines their own argument.

And second of all, one the things that I *do* like about the church is that it's so freaking morbid. They are hella goth, historically. I visited Europe recently and was totally charmed by all the relics and memento mori and gruesome paintings of martyrdoms in the churches and museums I toured. Don't try and act like you're all sunshine and joie de vivre, Catholics!

PS, @Carol, I've heard conflicting reports on that aspect of Mother Teresa's clinic. I'm inclined to believe that her operation was poorly run and kind of corrupt, but I think it's kind of dubious that she wanted people to suffer. First-hand accounts seem to suggest that they did have pain medications on hand, they were just understocked and bought low-quality stuff. Idk if that changes anything.

[dawbs]

FWIW, down the Mother Teresa rabbit hole, there's a lot to unpack there.  ANd the fallibility of people makes it hard to decide what to do w/ heroes that fall.

But the Mr's aunt spent time at one of the convents associated w/ Mother Teresa.  She was teaching there and very dedicated, and lived there.  And almost died.  She almost died because feeding the poor was a priority; feeding the 'employees' was not.  Medical care was non existent.  If she hadn't essentially been smuggled out by family and cared for outside the compound, she would likely not have made it.

That has forever colored my feelings on it as well.

[feministxtian]

If your pro-life views don't include medical care, housing, food, clothing and education...then fuck you. It's very simple, Matthew 25:31-46. That's it. There's nothing to argue.

[Cleopatra7]

13 hours ago, NachosFlandersStyle said:

PS, @Carol, I've heard conflicting reports on that aspect of Mother Teresa's clinic. I'm inclined to believe that her operation was poorly run and kind of corrupt, but I think it's kind of dubious that she wanted people to suffer. First-hand accounts seem to suggest that they did have pain medications on hand, they were just understocked and bought low-quality stuff. Idk if that changes anything.

The fame of Mother Teresa is such that the Missionaries of Charity are flush with cash, probably much more so than a secular organization like Doctors Without Borders. The problem is not that the MCs can't provide top-notch care because of lack of funds, but that they choose not to because of their fetishization of poverty. 

Quote

The donation issue first came up in the early 1990s when it was revealed that Charles Keating, an American banker known for the infamous "saving and loan scandal," had donated up to $1.25 million to Missionaries of Charity. Amidst calls to return the money, Mother Teresa controversially chose to remain silent, an incident that is still sited by her critics who demand transparency.

In early 2000, Susan Shields, a former Missionaries sister who left the organization "unhappy", created a furor by saying she herself had "written receipts of $50,000" in donation but there was no sign of the "flood of money." Forbes India talked to a volunteer in the Los Angeles office of Missionaries of Charity who admitted that "even when bread was over at the soup kitchens, none was bought unless donated." A report in German magazine Stern, revealed that in 1991 only seven percent of the donation received at Missionaries of Charity was used for charity. Former volunteers and people close to the Mother House revealed that the Vatican, home to the Pope, has control over the "monetary matters" ever since Missionaries of Charity came under its fold in 1965. The control got stronger after Mother Teresa died in 1997.

When asked about how much money the Charity gets annually, the then superior general Sister Nirmala in a rare media interview a few years ago remarked "Countless." When asked how much it was, she answered, "God knows. He is our banker." Forbes India's request for details was turned down at the Mother House. Sister Mary Prema, the present superior general, did not agree to a meeting.

https://www.forbes.com/2010/08/10/forbes-india-mother-teresa-charity-critical-public-review.html#25ff5cf3108e

Rather than employ trained doctors and nurses, the MCs use voluntourists who have little to offer except teen spirit and zealousness. 

The voluntourists who go to MC houses in developing countries are much more dangerous than the ones we mock who are associated with a group like SOS. The locals in El Salvador probably found the Dullards and their ilk to be annoying, but were in a position where they could simply ignore them. In comparison, voluntourists at MC houses are taking care of people who are severely disabled and/or ill, and doing the kind of work that would require the proper education and a license in any other setting, and the residents of these homes can’t leave if they feel like their rights and dignity are being violated. There is no logical reason why soiled laundry teeming with infections at an MC house should be washed by hand by volunteers, when the order clearly has the money to buy washing machines. The only reason stems from a fetishization of poverty rather than a desire to eliminate poverty.

Like SOS, the Mother Teresa myth is based on the idea of a white savior; that is, that poor black and brown people living outside the West led horrible, hellish lives devoid of any value unless some white person condescends to throw some crumbs their way. When I posed my doubts about Mother Teresa when I was on the way out of Catholicism at the Catholic Answers Board, this was this response in her defense, that the people of India should be grateful for what the MCs gave them, even though it was grossly substandard by any measure. SOS and the MCs can't imagine that black and brown people might have culture worth learning about or are capable of solving their own problems.

 

[NachosFlandersStyle]

@Cleopatra7 oh yeah, I get the white savior aspect and funding situation. What I mean is that I've heard a lot of Hitchens fans who describe MT as, like, personally sadistic, like she was running some kind of torture chamber for her own satisfaction, which seems pretty sensationalized. It sounds more like the organization did a half-assed job at a lot of stuff because of the attitude that the community should be grateful just to have these underprepated volunteers. Which is also shitty, but it's a different kind of shitty than what Hitchens was getting at.

[Carol]

I don't think MT was deliberately running any kind of a torture chamber(per Christopher Hitchens) but I do think Catholics invest a great deal in suffering before death.  And, frankly, I do think there is some sadism involved.  It is expected of true, devoted catholics that you embrace suffering because you should suffer, you deserve it, it's your ticket to heaven.  The more you suffer the closer you sit to the right hand of god.  

They fight tooth and nail against the passage of Death with Dignity laws.  They see dignity in suffering(and there may be for some people) and try to force their views on the religious and non-religious alike.  It is an affront to them that anyone have the temerity to determine the time of their own exit.  That's god's, and only god's, decision.

 

[Cleopatra7]

9 hours ago, Carol said:

I don't think MT was deliberately running any kind of a torture chamber(per Christopher Hitchens) but I do think Catholics invest a great deal in suffering before death.  And, frankly, I do think there is some sadism involved.  It is expected of true, devoted catholics that you embrace suffering because you should suffer, you deserve it, it's your ticket to heaven.  The more you suffer the closer you sit to the right hand of god.  

They fight tooth and nail against the passage of Death with Dignity laws.  They see dignity in suffering(and there may be for some people) and try to force their views on the religious and non-religious alike.  It is an affront to them that anyone have the temerity to determine the time of their own exit.  That's god's, and only god's, decision.

 

The question of how to deal with pain and sufffering is an issue that all religions and philosophies must deal with. For many centuries, the Catholic view was that suffering could be turned into a positive good by “offering up” pain (ie suffering on behalf of) for the souls in purgatory or to atone for one’s own sins. This notion has been de-emphasized since Vatican II but hasn’t disappeared altogether, as Mother Teresa and John Paul II were big proponents of “offering it up.” The problem as I see it is when “offering it up” becomes an institutional policy in the realm of social services, which is what happened in the Magdalene laundries and right now in the MC homes. In the case of the latter, the people who are supposedly being served are not Catholic (here I’m talking specifically about the ones in India) and being told to “offer up” truly horrific pain comes off as both tone-deaf and cruel, especially when the MCs have the money to provide clients with painkillers, sanitary conditions, and therapy. I don’t think Mother Teresa was a sadist, but I think that her own views on the importance of “offering it up” blinded her to the fact that the people she was supposed to be serving would interpret their suffering and how it should be handled very differently.

By way of comparison, when Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN, was dying, she requested to not have any painkillers because she wanted to offer up her suffering and engage in a full imitation of Christ. This I don’t have a problem with because Mother Angelica was of sound mind and making the decision for herself about how she wanted to die. It’s not what I would choose but that was her call to make. As far as I know, Mother Angelica wasn’t forcing any of her nuns to die in the same manner, so she wasn’t imposing her personal desires about what constitutes a good death onto third parties.

[Hane]

What @Carol and @Cleopatra7 just said. My Irish Catholic aunt used to say “offer it up to the suffering souls in Purgatory” when someone was suffering from minor pain. And who could forget JP II’s monumentally tone-deaf “thanks to the Jews for giving us the gift of the Holocaust”? I still cringe every time I think of it!

[47of74]

Another priest making an idiot of himself

Quote

During a call-in segment for the Catholic Answers radio show, a priest told a conflicted handyman that he has every right to refuse to install fire alarms at a Planned Parenthood facility since it would be just like aiding the Nazis or the KKK.

A caller identifying himself as “Matthew” addressed a question to Father Paul Keller, saying he was unsure about how he’d feel if his company installed fire alarm systems at Planned Parenthood.

“It would be not a good thing to be involved in helping somebody who’s taking a life,” Father Keller told the caller. “Think about if you were in Nazi Germany, and you were asked by Hitler to install a fire alarm, or a sprinkler system, in one of the guards’ shacks right next to the ovens that were killing Christians and Jews, and so forth. I don’t think you’d want to even set foot in an internment camp such in that part of the world.”

“Suppose the Ku Klux Klan asked you to do this similar work in one of their offices, but they are completed devoted to being anti-Catholic and… being totally racist and so forth. So no, you wouldn’t want to do that,” he added.

 

Guys like this Keller idiot are a large part of the reason why I left the church. 

[duplessis3]

Hope Mathew enjoys getting fired from the company he works for.

[Beermeet]

Trying to rationalize potential murder. Nice.  And what if a devout Catholic fire fighter dies trying to save the people in that bulding?  Still ok, for the "cause" Disgusting human.  Be gone with you!  Just stop with the holocaust comparison.   Never justified to do that, the holocaust stands on it's own as one of the worst things we have done to one another in our sorted history.  

[iweartanktops]

Uhhhh, how very pro-life of him. Let all of the LIVING, BREATHING human beings die in a fire because, fetuses? 

[Glasgowghirl]

I was raised Catholic, I don't go to mass but none of the priests I've had would dream of saying this. Even the anti abortion groups that came to my school said that if the people they counselled chose abortion in the end they still offered support to them afterwards. I am not American and even I know planned parenthood offers more than just abortions, it is a valuable service for people who need a range of services. They anti abortion movement are the biggest hypocrits, they only value the unborn and have contempt for people who don't share their beliefs.

[clueliss]

Crap like this is why the pro-choice crowd has a really hard time with the attitudes of the single issue voter crowd.  (seriously WTF!)

[Cleopatra7]

This book provides some useful sociological insight into how people become anti-abortion activists:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=prolife+ziad

In one of the later chapters, the author makes the interesting point that hardcore anti-abortion activists essentially make up a church unto themselves. That is, the Catholic Church or the SBC may be against abortion on a theoretical institutional level, but not every individual or congregation associated with these denominations is going to be 100 percent all into anti-abortion activism like the Duggars or Frank Pavone. The book also provides a useful model that explains how people are mobilized into anti-abortion activism that not only describes JB and Michelle Duggar to a tee but also explains other phenomena, like how ostensibly non-religious young people join groups like ISIS.

To return to the specific example of the OP, I think the fundamental problem is the idea of co-operating with evil. It’s fine in theory, but it’s selectly applied to certain issues (ie abortion, homosexuality, and contraception). The bishops say that even signing a piece of paper would force the Little Sisters of the Poor to co-operate in the “evil” of contraception, but there’s no similar hard line against Catholic institutions supporting practices that enable racism, poverty, and the like. I think much of the problem is that Catholic social teachings are inherently paternalistic and are more interested in supporting a stable and patriarchal status quo that solving social problems. Consequently, abortion and contraception are absolute evils while racism and poverty are just inconveniences that have to be endured in a fallen world.

[47of74]

7 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

I was raised Catholic, I don't go to mass but none of the priests I've had would dream of saying this. Even the anti abortion groups that came to my school said that if the people they counselled chose abortion in the end they still offered support to them afterwards. I am not American and even I know planned parenthood offers more than just abortions, it is a valuable service for people who need a range of services. They anti abortion movement are the biggest hypocrits, they only value the unborn and have contempt for people who don't share their beliefs.

I was also raised Catholic.  Most of the priests around here are decent enough people, but there are a couple around here who would be nodding in agreement with that idiot Keller if they heard him.  One of them once sent me a letter not long after I had left the church.  I didn't even read it.  I just did a Martin Luther type thing, took it outside, put it in a small coffee can and burned it.  This was the same priest who once joked during a sermon about animals not going to heaven because they were soulless. 

And I can imagine a fair number of the reich to life types around here agreeing with Keller as well.  The local reich to life head here when Todd Akin last ran came right out and said that Akin was correct about "legitimate rape" then tried the taken out of context horseshit excuse when the blowback came looking for her.  One of the nicest things about leaving the Catholic church was no longer having to pretend to tolerate the local reich to life folks.

10 hours ago, duplessis3 said:

Hope Mathew enjoys getting fired from the company he works for.

That would be ideal.  However the reich to life types would probably claim Matthew is being oppressed cause Jeeeeeezus and make a big court case out of it.  And Orange Fart Cloud judges would not even bother weighing the evidence but agree right away that poor Matthew was being oppressed.

[Black Aliss]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

reich to life

I love this phrase

[47of74]

41 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

I love this phrase

As Russian epic of Cinderella says, if shoe fits...

[GeoBQn]

This reminds me of a story I read a couple of years ago about how 12 nurses working at one hospital claimed that they couldn't provide care to women who need post-abortion care (the way they would provide care for patients undergoing other types of surgery), on the grounds that it violated their Catholic beliefs.  In that case, the woman already had an abortion, so there is no action you are doing to stop it, so all you are accomplishing is denying medical care to someone who needs it.  Do nurses take the Hippocratic Oath?  And in the case of this hospital, the number of women trying to opt-out was a significant percentage of the nursing staff in that department, which burdens the staff that is left over.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-jersey-nurses-charge-religious-discrimination-over-hospital-abortion-policy/2011/11/15/gIQAydgm2N_story.html?utm_term=.07d3e0f8d4c4

[PsyD2013]

Many nursing programs include the "Nightingale Pledge" at the pinning ceremony.  Part of this pledge refers to adhering to nursings professional code of ethics.

[Briefly]

I am pro-life.  I'm not going to tell anyone else what they can or can't do, I just would not chose to abort if it were me.  That being said, he is an idiot!  If he's so pro-life, what about the lives of the people who are at risk of a fire? Just because they don't agree with his belief system that does not make their lives any less important to them or give him the right to be so uncaring about them.  He's really bad.

3 hours ago, GeoBQn said:

This reminds me of a story I read a couple of years ago about how 12 nurses working at one hospital claimed that they couldn't provide care to women who need post-abortion care (the way they would provide care for patients undergoing other types of surgery), on the grounds that it violated their Catholic beliefs.  In that case, the woman already had an abortion, so there is no action you are doing to stop it, so all you are accomplishing is denying medical care to someone who needs it.  Do nurses take the Hippocratic Oath?  And in the case of this hospital, the number of women trying to opt-out was a significant percentage of the nursing staff in that department, which burdens the staff that is left over.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-jersey-nurses-charge-religious-discrimination-over-hospital-abortion-policy/2011/11/15/gIQAydgm2N_story.html?utm_term=.07d3e0f8d4c4

When I had my tubes tied several years ago, I had to go to a doctor I'd never seen before because the hospital my doctor used happened to be a Catholic hospital and they would not do sterlizations.  But that's not really the same thing.  But it shouldn't matter, they needed medical care and they should have gotten it.

[elsiedindin]

If you're pro-life you should be working to preserve life, even life you consider undeserving or evil. I don't know Fr Paul Keller well but I have met him and read some of his writings (and enjoyed them). I think he's entirely wrong in this case. I hope he publicly revises his stated opinion.