Conscience articles from September 2006

Conscience archives from September 2006

Editor's note.
September 22, 2006... WE ARE BREAKING NEW GROUND IN THIS ISSUE OF CONSCIENCE, with a series of articles on children. In our lead article by the University of Houston's Steven Mintz, we set out to challenge many myths about childhood, especially the idea that there...

Nothing short of a revolution.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2006... I agree with Kavita Nandini Ramdas's view that the concentration of the North American and European women's movements on employment, pay, day care and abortion rights has marginalized women's rights within the broader social justice and peace...

On marriage.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2006... MY MARRIAGE IS AN ABOMInation. An Ohio church's sign in the spring 2006 issue of Conscience said so, and we all know the church is always correct. They have that red phone that connects directly to up above, right? No, I am not gay....

What abortion means to me.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2006... I AM A 58-YEAR-OLD WHITE woman. I had an abortion 19 years ago. I am not bragging, nor am I apologizing. I happen to believe that abortion is a form of murder. I am a mother of three children in their twenties and I am an ordained...

Women in black.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2006... THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR sending me the Summer 2006 issue of Conscience. It's good to hear a progressive voice from the Catholic community. I thought your readers might be interested in some background information on the group you...

The church and abortion: court ends Colombia's abortion ban.(Brief article)
September 22, 2006... A may 10 constitutional Court decision in Colombia legalized some abortions. Previously, abortion was completely illegal in the country., with some estimating that as many as 400,000 illegal abortions took place each year. Now, abortion will be...

Cardinal seeks change in UK abortion limits.(IN CATHOLIC CIRCLES)(Brief article)
September 22, 2006... CARDINAL CORMAC MURPHY-O'Connor, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, has urged the UK government to set up an inquiry into abortion time limits in the country. In a meeting with Patricia Hewitt, the secretary, of state for health the...

The sexual abuse scandal.
September 22, 2006... * Settlements and fees in the US sex abuse scandal tripled from 2004 to 2005, rising to some $467 million, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced March 30. The scandal involves 12,000 victims of 5,000 abusers and has cost...

Vatican censures antichoice Polish radio station.(Radio Maryja)
September 22, 2006... RADIO MARYJA, A POLISH radio station run by the outspoken Roman Catholic monk Tadeusz Rydzyk, has become embroiled in a major scandal over anti-Semitic statements by a presenter, Stanislaw Michalkiewicz, who said Jews were "trying to force our...

Fired for becoming a father.(Robb McCoy fired )(Brief article)
September 22, 2006... THE BOSTON HERALD HAS reported that a teacher at a Catholic school was fired after he acknowledged breaking a mandatory celibacy policy that was in place for single employees. When Robb McCoy admitted to his parish priest that his bride-to-be...

Fired for being gay.(Romanian Catholic Church's Cormac Murphy-O'Connor)(Brief article)
September 22, 2006... THE UK'S MAIL ON SUNDAY revealed that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales, dismissed his chief communications aide because the aide was gay. Apparently the aide, Stephen Noon, had been...

Come again?(Brief article)
September 22, 2006... "If Father Maciel and his charism as a founder are to be judged by the fruits of his work, those fruits are most impressive indeed." George Weigel, senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, June 2002 "A cardinal in whom I...

The evolution of childhood: from the Puritans to the DVD generation.(digital video disks)
September 22, 2006... Americans are great believers in progress in all areas but one. For four centuries, adults have feared that the younger generation is going to hell in a handbasket. Today, the young, we are told, are growing up too fast and are facing...

Children in America.(BY THE NUMBERS)
September 22, 2006... Half of the US senators and a majority, of the members of the US House of Representatives voted to undermine and cut guaranteed health protections for 25 million children who depend on Medicaid as their health lifeline at a time when 9 million...

Buying our children. selling our souls? The commodification of children.
September 22, 2006... The modern world is full of things to buy. Go into any airport and you can find piles of T-shirts, packets of snacks and glittery souvenirs produced oceans away from the places they depict. You can purchase imported French cheese at most...

Does church doctrine trump rape victims' needs?
September 22, 2006... A BILL BEFORE THE CONNECTICUT GENERAL ASSEMBLY requiring hospitals, including four Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors is heatedly opposed by local Catholic bishops and the Catholic hospitals. They want...

Children--where religion hits the road: why society needs religious views of children.
September 22, 2006... A reinvention of childhood is under way. Previous understandings inherited from Christianity and the Enlightenment--children as depraved or innocent, for example--no longer completely fit. New controlling images suggested by politics, popular...

Rebuilding the American dream: the imperative of developing a new anti-poverty agenda.(low-income families )
September 22, 2006... All Americans want the next generation to succeed. But what most Americans do not know is that some 40 percent of American children are growing up in low-income families with the odds stacked against them. These include the 13.5 million...

Moral compass malfunction.(Catholic Charities USA)(Column)
September 22, 2006... Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of Boston, in its decision to stop handling adoptions in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, has exposed a malfunction of its moral compass. A century of providing compassionate help to children whose birth...

Sex talk.
September 22, 2006... WE ASKED SEVERAL CHILDREN OF LEADING reproductive rights activists to tell us about their experiences discussing sex and sex education with their parents. We asked them how their own values were formed and what that means when they talk to...

Perinatal hospice: another choice for women facing unplanned pregnancies?
September 22, 2006... On May 21, 2006, the Minnesota state legislature concluded its session by passing a modification of its Women's Right to Know Act, a mandatory counseling law designed to discourage women from seeking abortion services. With the enactment of the...

Conscience, professionalism and corporate obligation.
September 22, 2006... Americans value individualism more than most, partly because they place an especially high value on freedom of conscience. America's roots in Puritanism help explain the durability of appeals to conscientious objection, with freedom to worship...

Politically partisan: the electoral campaigns of priests for life.
September 22, 2006... "We will repeat and intensify this year all we did in the previous election cycles. The pro-abortion groups, the liberals in the Church, the over-cautious attorneys, and the people who don't want to see the Church 'influencing elections' can...

The diverse sources and invented causes of the religious right.
September 22, 2006... Over the past few years, people around the world--including many Americans--have been astonished by what seems to be a massive turn to the religious right in the United States. The role played by conservative religious voters in the 2004...

Setting the standard.(Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, and Change)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Theological Bioethics. Participation, Justice, Change Lisa Sowle Cahill (Georgetown University Press, 2005, 310pp) 1589010752, $26.95 Over the last quarter-century, secular bioethicists and liberal policymakers have become increasingly...

African Women, Religion, and Health: Essays in Honor of Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye.(African Women, Religion, and Health: Essays in Honor of Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... African Women, Religion, and Health: Essays in Honor of Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye Isabel Apawa Phiri and Sarojini Nadar, eds. (Orbis Books, 2006, 280pp) Composed of 14 essays written largely by African women theologians, this...

Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to His Biblical Commentaries.(Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to his Biblical Commentaries)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to his Biblical Commentaries Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating and John P. Yokum (T&T Clark International, 2005, 257pp) This book contains nine articles in which theologians unpack separate...

The Critical Calling: Reflections on Moral Dilemmas since Vatican II.(The Critical Calling: Reflections on Moral Dilemmas Since Vatican II)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... The Critical Calling: Reflections on Moral Dilemmas since Vatican II Richard A. McCormick, SJ (Georgetown University Press, 2006, 434PP) This reprint of The Critical Calling, first published in 1998, comes six years after the death of...

The Future of Christianity.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... The Future of Christianity Arthur J. Bellinzoni (Prometheus Books, 2006, 192pp) With a marked decline in both the number of clergy and the number of people attending church weekly over the past several decades, Bellinzoni poses the...

The Image of God and the Psychology of Religion.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... The Image of God and the Psychology of Religion Richard Dayringer and David Oler, eds. (Haworth Pastoral Press, 2004, 119pp) Looking at factors such as gender, age and mental health, this collection of seven articles combines an...

Justice in Robes.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Justice in Robes Ronald Dworkin (Harvard University Press, 2006, 308pp) Dworkin, a professor of law and philosophy who is an important voice on the scope of taw, provides a dense and thorough argument for the inclusion of moral...

"Opening the heart and emotions of women": the No Estas Sola video project.
September 22, 2006... In Latin America every year, some 4 million women and their families face the difficult decision of ending a pregnancy by seeking an abortion. When Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled in May that abortion would be legal in the country in...

Is religion politics or is politics religion?(Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War Michael Burleigh (Harper Collins, 2006, 544PP) 0060580933, $29.95 Suddenly, religion is everywhere. Since 2001, politicians,...

Life, the Universe, and Everything: Investigating God and the New Physics.(Life, the Universe, and Everything: Investigating God and the New Physics)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Life, the Universe, and Everything: Investigating God and the New Physics Andy Fletcher (Lulu, 2005, 204pp) Based on a series of seminars given in high schools in the US and overseas, Fletcher offers this sort-of intelligent design...

Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church J. LeBron McBride, PhD (Hayworth Pastoral Press, 2005, 103pp) McBride, a senior minister at a Disciples of Christ church and a professor with an occupational background in marriage and...

The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs Madeleine Albright (Harper Collins, 2006, 352pp) Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright gives a personal perspective on the age-old question about the...

Legally and culturally schizophrenic.(Kicking and Screaming: Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Kicking and Screaming: Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century Ivana Bacik (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, 160pp) 0862788609, $16.95 What do we know about Ireland? Economic miracle, immigrant and tourist destination, highly...

Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change Anne Firth Murray (New World Library, 2006, 235PP) Firth Murray, lifelong women's rights advocate and founding president of the Global Fund for Women, draws from her struggles and...

Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America.(Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America Rickie Solinger (NYU Press, 2005, 303pp) Pregnancy and Power chronicles the political and cultural history of reproductive rights, practices and battles. It...

Sex and the Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual Growth.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Sex and the Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual Growth Daniel A. Helminiak (Harrington Park Press, 2006, 235PP) Helminiak, a psychotherapist and professor who formerly served as a Catholic priest and assistant to the Jesuit philosopher...

Postscript.
September 22, 2006... "The first thing we have to do is get you off the birth control... devise a plan to get [your wives] to stay home with the kids.... They want that strength and security from you. They might resent it at first... (but) that is the natural...