Conscience articles from December 2002

Conscience archives from December 2002

Editor's note.
December 22, 2002... DURING THE PAST YEAR WE HAVE WITNESSED AN OPEN WAR on funding for international family planning. Our antennae went up when US president George W. Bush initially delayed his government's promised $34 million funding for the United Nations...

Clergy sexual abuse. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2002... SARA MORELLO ("AN Unholy Alliance," into focus what has become a complex issue for most Catholics: Who is to blame for the sexual abuse crisis? Careful statements by US bishops have convinced far too many that the current scandal is an...

Homosexual priests. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2002... "HOMOSEXUAL PRIESTS ARE Not The Issue" (Terry Loncaric, Autumn 2002) was excellent and clearly outlined the many reasons that good priests--regardless of their sexual orientation--should be given equal opportunity to serve their communities. I...

Ordaining women. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2002... FRANCES KISSLING ("WOMEN Ordained: Stepping on the Vatican's Toes," Autumn 2002) raised some questions about how women priests will respond to reproductive health issues. There are many such issues (not just abortion) to which I believe women...

HIV/AIDS. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2002... ONE OF THE REASONS WE have not yet conquered the my epidemic in southern Africa is because HIV is suffused with shame ("A Moralistic Crusade: Sex, Condoms and the Catholic Hierarchy," Serra Sippel and "Catholics in Zimbabwe: Sex, Celibacy and...

Abortion law. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2002... SENANAYAKE AND NEWMAN'S article ("The Politics of Abortion in the Modern Age," Autumn 2002), presents a challenge to the Irish prochoice movement. Although thousands of women worldwide are dying needlessly each year due to lack of safe abortion...

The hierarchy plays politics. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2002... THE CLANDESTINE POLITICAL activity of the church, conducted largely through lay organizations such as the Knights of Columbus and the Knights of Malta deserves our attention. This political activity is also augmented through the cooperation of...

Concerns raised over US bishops' approval of watered-down norms on sexual abuse. (Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal).
December 22, 2002... FOLLOWING CARDINAL Bernard Law's resignation (see box, opposite page), the pope approved a new set of rules proposed by the Vatican-appointed panel to deal with the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Many view the new rules as a significant watering...

UN receives new report on clergy sexual abuse crisis. (Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal).
December 22, 2002... A CATHOLICS FOR A FREE Choice-led delegation presented a new report illustrating the international scope of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church to the United Nations Committee an the Rights of the Child. The report, The Holy See and...

Kathleen L. McChesney, number three official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Other News).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... * Kathleen L. McChesney, number three official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was named executive director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Child and Youth Protection.

The pope has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Edgardo Storni of Santa Fe, Argentina, following reports of Storni being involved in sexual assaults against seminarians. (Other News).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... * The pope has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Edgardo Storni of Santa Fe, Argentina, following reports of Storni being involved in sexual assaults against seminarians. The 66-year-old bishop, who allegedly assaulted at least 47 men, had...

Cardinal Desmond Connell, the leader of the church in Dublin, was heckled with jeers of "it's too late," during a mass when he apologized for not "effectively" dealing with the problem. (Other News).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... * Cardinal Desmond Connell, the leader of the church in Dublin, was heckled with jeers of "it's too late," during a mass when he apologized for not "effectively" dealing with the problem. The Irish government is likely to appoint a commissioner...

Pope visits Italian parliament, calls for Italians to have more children. (The Church and State).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... POPE JOHN PAUL II MADE the first ever speech by a head of the Catholic church to the Italian parliament, and used the opportunity to call on Italians to have more children. Included in his 45-minute speech were comments on the central role of...

Catholics in the US mid-term elections. (The Church and State).
December 22, 2002... VOTING RESULTS IN THE November 2002 mid-term elections in the United States have confirmed that Catholics vote their conscience, rather than under instructions from the bishops. In Pennsylvania, with more than 2.3 million registered...

Cardinal Bernard Law resigns. (In Catholic Circles).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... Cardinal Bernard Law has resigned as archbishop of Boston following continued revelations about his handling of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The pope accepted his resignation at a short meeting in the Vatican. There has been widespread...

Vatican says cloning may bring "new racism". (The Church and Cloning).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... ARCHBISHOP RENATO MARTINO, the then-representative of the Vatican at the United Nations, has suggested that human cloning may pave the way for "a new form of racism, for the development of these techniques could lead to the creation of a...

Vatican may seek ban on homosexual priests. (In Catholic Circles).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... Senior Vatican officials are discussing an internal document proposing a ban on homosexual priests. It is a policy that has long been sought by conservatives, but has gathered steam in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis, which some have blamed...

Christopher Reeve condemns Catholic hierarchy's stance on stem cell research. (The Church and Cloning).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... ACTOR CHRISTOPHER Reeve, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a fall from his horse in 1995, has condemned the stance of the Catholic hierarchy and President George W. Bush for obstructing medical research that might help find a cure for...

Scottish Catholic schools to teach about homosexuality.(The Church and Homosexuality).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... A NEW CURRICULUM FOR Scottish denominational schools requires them to teach students "sexual orientation is not the same for everyone." The guidelines, drawn up by the Catholic Education Commission, will mean that students over the age of...

Younger priests less liberal, at odds with their older peers. (End Notes).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... A SURVEY BY THE 200 Angeles Times has found that younger Catholic priests are "markedly more conservative" than older fellow priests. Clerics under the age of 41 were more supportive of the hierarchy and expressed less dissent against church...

Pope makes Opus Dei leader quickest canonization. (End Notes).(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... POPE JOHN PAUL II HAS canonized Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer, the Spanish Roman Catholic priest and founder of the Opus Dei movement. Critics raised concerns about the speed of the canonization. While some canonizations take hundreds of years...

Behind the Great Wall: China's population policies.
December 22, 2002... IN THE EARLY 1970s, WHEN CHINA WAS MORE THAN TWO decades into its communist experiment, its leaders took stock of the country's soaring population and concluded that they were headed for disaster. Between 1962 and 1972 alone, the country had...

Tough times, tougher choices: an interview with Thoraya Obaid, executive director of UNFPA.
December 22, 2002... THE UNITED NATION'S POPULATION FUND (UNFPA) supports family planning and maternal health programs that have helped women make reproductive choices and reduce infant and maternal mortality rates in more than 140 countries. Yet, despite its...

Coercion in family planning: individual autonomy is pitched against communal values.
December 22, 2002... WHILE COERCION IN family planning always and rightly arouses controversy, it is useful to place some sort of context--historical and sociological--on the debate. In the last century, coercion in the reproductive field has been associated with...

Chinese whispers: UNFPA's opponents play politics with women's lives.
December 22, 2002... IN DECEMBER 2001, PRESIDENT George W. Bush froze $34 million that Congress had appropriated for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), because Representative Chris Smith (Republican-New Jersey), an ultra-conservative member of congress,...

Reflections on tolerance. (Roundtable).(Brief Article)(Editorial)
December 22, 2002... WHEN PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH ACCEDED TO THE demands of ultra-conservative anti-family planning advocates in and around his administration and refused to give the UNFPA its allocated funding of $34 million in 2002, voices of condemnation were...

The world is our parish. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... PSALM 146 SPEAKS OF THE God "who executes justice for the oppressed;/who gives food to the hungry./The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind." "We encourage individuals to pursue a healthy lifestyle and affirm...

Buddhist ethics and human suffering. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... NO WOMAN MAKES HER REPRODUCTIVE health decisions in a vacuum. Instead, her attitudes and decisions regarding reproductive health are informed by her religious values and religious environment. Whether or not a woman limits the number of...

A faithful witness. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... JOHN WESLEY, FOUNDER OF the Methodist denomination, had a tried and true commitment to social justice, to being in ministry with (not to) the poor and to the importance of health care for all. This doctrine, linked with the teachings of Christ,...

Faith in freedom. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... FREEDOM IS A BASIC, FOUNDATIONAL principle of our nation. Our beginnings are rooted in a struggle against coercion, the coercion of another government over a people who longed to be free. We won that freedom. Now, across the world, we do our...

War against what? (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... I AM BEGINNING TO WONDER if President Bush is serious about his "war against terrorism." My suspicions were raised earlier this year when he decided, against the will of Congress, to de-fund the UNFPA. Not only did this decision signal a change...

Destruction and distraction. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... I AM WRITING THIS THE SAME WEEK our church is preparing to celebrate the Festival of Christ the King. The Gospel lesson is that often heard but seldom heeded text from Matthew 25 where the King comes back for the final judgment. The text is...

Together in hope. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... A GREAT SIGN OF HOPE IS that spiritual traditions are moving towards dialogue and cooperation for the first time in history. I am not underestimating the intensive and successful efforts made by the World Parliament of Religions, the World...

Stewardship, faith and family planning. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... THE OPENING CHAPTERS of the book of Genesis show us a God who loves and values all of creation. Men and women are created in the image of God and regarded equally by God. They equally share the responsibility of stewardship for the Earth....

A Hindu perspective. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... COERCION IN FAMILY PLANNING is a major concern for Hindus--but for political, rather than religious reasons. Hinduism per se is not opposed to family planning, but during the period of emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, draconian...

God's ambassadors. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... AS A LICENSED PROFESSIONAL Counselor, I work with people of all backgrounds, ages, creeds, and faiths. It is common to discuss sexuality and reproductive issues in therapy, as we are all sexual creatures. What I find frightening is the quantity...

Mixing religion and politics. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... THE BATTLE OVER ROE V. Wade and its coming thirty-year anniversary are causes for celebration--and not just in the United States. The rights women gained in the US have impacted the entire free world. It is good to celebrate the victories...

Saving precious lives. (Reflections On Tolerance).
December 22, 2002... GOD IS OUR CREATOR. GOD is the source of all life. God is love and human life is a very precious gift of God. Life is also vulnerable. No one can live without the protection of our human rights or without caring love. Everyone on earth has a...

Religion and public policy: correcting the balance: a paper presented in Stockholm and Madrid, October 2002.
December 22, 2002... I AM VERY HONOURED THAT YOU invited me to address you. I should emphasise at the outset that I am speaking as an individual and from my own experience, and not on behalf of the United Nations or of UNFPA. We are considering the role that...

Catholic identity and the abortion debate.
December 22, 2002... A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion Daniel A. Dombrowski & Robert Deltete (University of Illinois Press, 2000, 158pp) WHEN POPE JOHN XXIII opened the second Vatican Council in 1962 he was seeking renewal of his ancient church,...

Bookshelf.(Book Review)(Brief Review)
December 22, 2002... A Defense of Abortion by David Boonin (Cambridge University Press, 2002, 350pp.) This thorough and detailed case for the moral permissibility of abortion shows that the moral case against abortion is unsuccessful, even on the terms...

White smoke and mirrors.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election John L. Allen, Jr. (Doubleday, 2002, 256pp.) A CONCLAVE, THE PROCESS through which a new pope is chosen, is the closest thing to a democratic election in the...

Completing our education, reinvigorating our faith.
December 22, 2002... Why I Am a Catholic Garry Wills (Houghton Mifflin, 2002, 390pp) GARRY WILLS' WHY I AM A Catholic completes the education that most of us never got. Catholics have never been taught a lot of church history. The catechism, yes; church...

Postscript.
December 22, 2002... "In political life you expect to be meatballed. But it's pretty tough to be fragged by your own troops." --Governor Frank Keating, chair of the bishops' sex abuse committee, reflecting on Cardinal Bernard Law's vitriolic response to his...

US support for family planning under attack.
December 22, 2002... Since taking office, President George W. Bush and his administration have taken a number of steps against international family planning, including the reintroduction of the "Global Gag Rule," the defunding of the United Nations Population Fund...

US mid-term election index.(Brief Article)
December 22, 2002... NOVEMBER 2002 OVERALL TURNOUT 39.3% The Republican Party became the first party of presidential power to gain state legislative seats in a mid-term election cycle since records were kept. Historically, the president's party has lost an...