Conscience articles from September 2003

Conscience archives from September 2003

Amid ongoing concerns over his health, October 2003 sees the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's election.(Editor's Note)
September 22, 2003... AMID ONGOING CONCERNS OVER HIS HEALTH, October 2003 sees the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's election. CFFC President and Conscience Executive Editor Frances Kissling marks the event, reflecting on a quarter of a century when the lives...

Anti-choice activity in Europe.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... SALIMA CHITALIA'S article ("New Battleground, Same Old Story," Summer 2003) was an excellent overview of the concerted campaign being waged by a group of anti-choice Members of the European Parliament that is spreading disinformation on the...

Contraceptive emergency.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... DIRECTIVE 36 MAY MAKE it acceptable for Catholic health care providers to provide emergency contraception to women who have been sexually assaulted, but as Amy Nunn rightly points out. ("Contraceptive Emergency," Summer 2003), it flails to...

A ministry of outrage.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... "THE MAGDALENE SISTERS" is a powerful criticism of the abuse of power in the name of God. The culture of silence and shaming and the cover-up of such abuse have left painful scars in Irish families that endure to this day. One of my Irish...

Abstinence-unless-married.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... ECHOING SIMILAR THOUGHTS to the two authors of articles around 'abstinence' approaches to HIV prevention, we in the UK and throughout Europe have been working hard during the past twenty years to work with targeted communities in a...

Pro-lifers for Choice.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... THANK YOU FOR THE thoughtful discussion of Dennis Kucinich's views on abortion. While his shift may disappoint many Catholics, he remains the one candidate who has heard the church's social gospel and champions it. But may I suggest other...

God's will.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... THE REVIEW BY GARRY Wills ("With God on his Side," Summer 2003) of the basic (eternal) questions involved in the Bush administration's ancient temptation of "doing God's will" (i.e., "anything we do, and everybody else is evil") was masterful....

Gaining Ground.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... AS WE EXPERIENCE BOTH advances and setbacks in our struggle for sexual and reproductive rights in Latin America, it was very stimulating to read Tim Frasca's article ("Gaining Ground," Summer 2003) where he describes the recent events that have...

Kudos.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... THE OTHER NIGHT I WAS unable to sleep and came across a show on Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) that truly disturbed me. After watching it I decided to visit your web-site. Thank you so much for making yourselves available to the public....

The Church and State: Vatican announces campaign against same-sex marriage.(In Catholic Circles)
September 22, 2003... THE VATICAN HAS announced a global campaign against gay marriage in a strongly-worded document released by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document, "Considerations Regarding Proposals...

Vatican officials oppose Turkey's entry to EU.(In Catholic Circles)
September 22, 2003... THE FOREIGN SECRETARY OF the Holy See, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, and Cardinal Camillo Ruini, head of the Conference of Italian Bishops, have both articulated the church hierarchy's opposition to Turkey's application to join the European...

The sexual abuse scandal: Bishops blamed for Boston scandal but no charges filed.(In Catholic Circles)
September 22, 2003... A REPORT RELEASED BY Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly documents that 237 priests and 13 church workers in the Boston archdiocese sexually abused 789 people since 1940. Reilly used the report to suggest that more than 1,000 people...

Bishops stage second meeting with church critics.(In Catholic Circles)
September 22, 2003... ON SEPTEMBER 8, MEMBERS of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) staged their second meeting with some of those concerned about the current state of the church in the US. Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the USCCB,...

Vatican considers full UN membership.(In Catholic Circles)
September 22, 2003... Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Holy See's secretary for relations with states, has announced that the Holy See is "seriously considering" applying for full membership of the United Nations. At present, the Vatican has the status of a...

Almost a third of Milwaukee priests oppose mandatory Celibacy.(In Catholic Circles)
September 22, 2003... More than 160 priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee have signed a letter to the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, calling for the priesthood to be open to married men. All 442 retired and active diocesan priests...

Former Boston priest, John Geoghan, who was serving a 9-10 year sentence for abusing children, was murdered in a medium-security prison in Massachusetts.(Sexual Abuse Round-up)
September 22, 2003... Former Boston priest, John Geoghan, who was serving a 9-10 year sentence for abusing children, was murdered in a medium-security prison in Massachusetts. He had been defrocked in i998, and many other criminal charges and civil suits were...

The Diocese of Covington in Kentucky has released a study suggesting that there is "reasonable cause to believe" that eight percent.(Sexual Abuse Round-up)
September 22, 2003... The Diocese of Covington in Kentucky has released a study suggesting that there is "reasonable cause to believe" that eight percent, or 30 of 372 of its priests, abused minors during the last 50 years.

The Boston archdiocese has reached a tentative settlement for some $85 million to settle about 500 outstanding clergy sex abuse lawsuits.(Sexual Abuse Round-up)
September 22, 2003... The Boston archdiocese has reached a tentative settlement for some $85 million to settle about 500 outstanding clergy sex abuse lawsuits. In one of his first acts in office, the new Archbishop of Boston, Sean P. O'Malley, replaced the lawyers...

The Archdiocese of Seattle has reached a settlement of almost $8 with 15 men.(Sexual Abuse Round-up)
September 22, 2003... The Archdiocese of Seattle has reached a settlement of almost $8 with 15 men who say they were abused by Rev. James McGreal during the 1960s.

An editorial in the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) has called for more bishops.(Sexual Abuse Round-up)
September 22, 2003... An editorial in the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) has called for more bishops to resign following Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly's 76-page report on the Boston archdiocese's handling of the sexual abuse scandal (see above). The...

California passes law regulating hospital sales, hierarchy opposed.(Endnotes)
September 22, 2003... THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY in California are to oppose a new law, signed by Governor Gray Davis, that prevents the sale of church-owned health facilities if the seller tries to prohibit the new owner from offering reproductive health services,...

Catholic nun convinces Australia's head doctor to support EC.(Endnotes)
September 22, 2003... AN AUSTRALIAN NUN WAS pivotal in reversing opposition from Australian Medical Association president Bill Glasson to making emergency contraception available over the counter to teenagers. According to the Mercury (Australia) Glasson said that a...

Few young Catholics in Northern Ireland agree with Bishops on sexuality.(Endnotes)
September 22, 2003... ACCORDING TO A SURVEY commissioned by bishops in Northern Ireland, fewer than a fifth of teenagers in Catholic schools agree with the church hierarchy's teaching on sex before marriage. The survey, by relationship counseling agency Accord, also...

Church hierarchy in Scotland calls for opposition to health plan.(Endnotes)
September 22, 2003... THE SCOTTISH CATHOLIC church has urged the country's Catholics to oppose a government sexual health plan that will link schools with sexual health clinics. The church hierarchy has stated that the plan will undermine the importance of marriage...

Reflecting on suffering.
September 22, 2003... CONSCIENCE GOES TO PRESS AS THE CHURCH MARKS the 25th anniversary of the election of Karol Wojtyla as pope. Reactions right and left are somewhat predictable, and perhaps mine are no exception. A significant part of the last 25 years of my life...

Pope John Paul II.
September 22, 2003... The pope in the world 1981 There is an attempted assassination on the pope by Mehmet Ali Agca, whom the pope subsequently visits the next year in prison. 1986 This pope is the first to visit a synagogue. 1989...

Playing the anti-Catholic card.
September 22, 2003... "THERE IS VEHEMENT ANTI-CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT OUT there," Mel Gibson is quoted as saying in the September 15 issue of the New Yorker. "It's vicious. I mean, I think we're just a little part of it, we're just the meat in the sandwich here....

Defying dominion: religious fundamentalism becomes a tool of a threatened patriarchy.
September 22, 2003... IN SEPTEMBER, COURAGEOUS WOMEN from across Afghanistan gathered in Kandahar, once the spiritual and political center of the Taliban movement, to talk about the future. The women were both Muslims and victims of an Islamic tyranny, but the...

On a wing and a prayer: absent the approval of congress, Bush imposes his faith-based initiative by Diktat.
September 22, 2003... DESPITE HIS NEAR-RECORD approval ratings, majorities in Congress and his seemingly unshaken belief that God is on his side, President George W. Bush has had enormous difficulty in getting a centerpiece of his domestic policy enacted. His...

The challenge of sexual diversity in ultra-conservative times.
September 22, 2003... WE LIVE IN DIFFICULT times, especially for those who deal with and promote issues related to reproductive rights. But, while those who work on reproductive rights may have their hands full, it is important to broaden their agenda to include...

Catholics are the church: what Catholics need to know, and why the hierarchy doesn't want us to.
September 22, 2003... CAN DIVORCED AND REMAried Catholics receive Communion? How about prochoice Catholic politicians? Do parishioners have a right to know how the pastor and the bishop are spending their contributions? Should parishioners have a voice in how their...

Abortion in popular literature: questions and reflections.
September 22, 2003... "They drove to the park in the early darkness and painted IF MEN GOT PREGNANT CONTRACEPTION AND ABORTION WOULD BE SACRAMENTS on the monument built for the pope's visit. There were a lot of letters. Brigid did fifty of them, hers looked sudden...

Faith, struggle and kairos: religion in the downfall of apartheid and since.
September 22, 2003... THAT MAGIC MIDNIGHT! Although almost a decade ago, thousands of South Africans remember standing outside civic centers throughout the land, black and white together, whilst clocks struck and bugles sounded, watching the frayed standards of the...

An arabesque is not an apology: the hierarchy cavorts in denial.
September 22, 2003... "I AM SORRY." THESE WORDS, LIKE "I love you," have the power to transform our lives. These are words we long to hear. We are always ready for them, eager to be persuaded by the new possibilities that they offer. But the words, though essential...

Cautionary Tale or Cri de Coeur?
September 22, 2003... Telling Truths In Church: Scandal, Flesh, And Christian Speech Mark D. Jordan (Beacon Press, 2003, 121pp.) READERS OF CONSCIENCE, whether rooted in Roman Catholic traditions or not, need to attend to the writings of Mark D. Jordan, whose...

The voice of despair: and then none of this mattered.
September 22, 2003... Catholicism and American Freedom: A History John T. McGreevy (WW Norton & Co. 2003, 407pp.) A LOGICAL STARTING POINT for writing religious history is one of contention. Professor McGreevy picks a contrarian Catholic student at the Eliot...

Bookshelf.
September 22, 2003... Abortion from the Religious and Moral Perspective: An Annotated Bibliography by George F. Johnston (Praeger, 2003, 247pp.) An expansive bibliography of more than 1,200 references to articles and books on abortion, from both the pro-and...

Individual aims, social movements.
September 22, 2003... The Moral Property of Women--A History of Birth Control Politics in America Linda Gordon (University of Illinois Press, 2002, 446pp.) LINDA GORDON PUBLISHED A version of this book in 1976 under the title, Woman's Body, Woman's Right. This...

Real lives, real choices.
September 22, 2003... Behind Every Choice Is a Story Gloria Feldt (with Carol Trickett Jennings) (University of North Texas Press, 2003, 242pp.) BEHIND EVERY CHOICE IS A STORY HAS BEEN WRITTEN at a point when the US administration appears determined to show its...

Sexual freedom is an American value.
September 22, 2003... Love The Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pelligrini (New York University Press, 2003, 175pp.) FOR THOSE OF US WORKING FOR EQUAL RIGHTS FOR GAY, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT)...

Postscript.
September 22, 2003... "I think that dissent is the major cause of the sexual abuse crisis because it has loosened priests and laity alike from their core beliefs, and particularly the core beliefs about sexual morality." --Deal W. Hudson, Bush adviser, right...

Index: charges of anti-Catholicism, 2000-2003.
September 22, 2003... 2000 * Presidential candidate George W. Bush is accused of anti-Catholicism after he speaks at Bob Jones University in South Carolina, a fundamentalist Christian university with a long history of anti-Catholicism whose president believes...