'AFFLUENT' PEOPLE AND POST-ABORTION SURVIVOR SYNDROME (Letter to DomPost, January 1 2015)

Thank you, Margaret Dunne (To the Point, December 31), for reminding us in connection with the ‘freeloaders’ attending the City Mission’s Christmas lunch, of Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s insight into the poverty of loneliness.  

Studies by practising child psychiatrist and psychologist Professor Philip Ney of Canada on the subject of sibling loss, especially loss of siblings by abortion, show effects similar to those displayed in survivors of the Holocaust. I suggest that with thousands of our unborn babies lost every year to their siblings by abortion, very many people who look and are ‘quite affluent’ are suffering post-abortion survivor syndrome with its symptoms of survivor guilt, deep-seated distrust of parents and loneliness.

THE CHRISTMAS STORY IS ACTUALLY NOT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE (Letter published in Dom Post, December 26)

If anything’s sadder than hating Christmas, it’s thinking life’s an insult to everyone’s good intentions, as Jane Bowron puts it (I wasn't going to have a bar of it, December 22).  

Because those who know that the Christmas story is actually not too good to be true also know that everything in life is ordered to their real advantage. 

OUR 'UNNERVING EMOTIONAL DISCONNECTION' (Letter to Dompost, Dec 20)

Sentencing a man for inflicting serious injuries on a 5 week-old boy (Father gets four years’ jail for severely injuring newborn, December 20), the judge remarked on his ‘unnerving emotional disconnection and inability to understand the seriousness of his actions’.  

Considering it would have been quite okay if fatal injuries had been inflicted on that baby only six weeks earlier by a certified consultant performing an abortion, it would seem fair to say the judge’s assessment fits not just this unfortunate father but our society as a whole.

CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER'S FOR EVERYONE - A POODLE REFLECTS ON VATICAN II (Published in 'NZ Catholic' Dec 21)

Our local veterinarians, a serious vet service dealing with serious cattle and sheep, have a sign up saying ‘Anxiety – Is Your Cat a Silent Sufferer?’ My dog took offence. He said he was being discriminated against.

Poodles do talk, you know. The modern milieu, Bosy went on to say, is a maelstrom of noise, threat, conflict and change, to which the human response is distraction.

We add to the racket by wiring our heads for sound even when asleep, with Musak in the supermarket, buses and planes. We expose ourselves to conflict by watching the news and horror movies or merely reading the newspaper. We accelerate change by consuming far too much (look at the leviathans we used to call lorries, shifting our stuff) constantly moving house, holidaying overseas (and returning with viruses), by reshaping our bodies with surgery, weird diets and working out. Angst-ridden, we project our problems onto those around us, even our pets.

Imagine how much simpler life was in the third century. But Thomas Merton tells us  even then St Anthony, the father of monks, ‘believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster.’ To escape what Henri Nouwen terms ‘the seductive compulsions of the world’, St Anthony and his monks fled to solitude, silence and prayer. And so can we.

I know. That sounds appalling. Because we’re victimised by a world that demands we  ‘know stuff’, ‘buy stuff’, ‘go to things’, ‘support things’. But there’s another world, as close as our sighs, which showcases real treasure: the kingdom of God, advertised by Christ in parables which a cathedral newsletter I read earlier this year described as ‘baffling’.

Baffling, maybe, for the very reason that understanding is one of the treasures hidden in that kingdom entered by St Anthony and his monks, and which we too are called to enter through contemplative prayer, prayer of the heart where God dwells and Satan attacks.

‘We all have different spiritualities,’ someone said to me recently. But authentic spiritualities must encompass the sacrifice and detachment required by Christ in his Gospel and practised by all the saints, which can be achieved only when as Vatican II says, ‘action is subordinated to contemplation’. Vatican II prescribed contemplative prayer for everyone, without exception.

 It’s not rocket science. It’s not complicated. When Nouwen asked Mother (now Saint) Teresa what he needed to live his priestly vocation she said, ‘Spend one hour a day in adoration of your Lord, and never do anything you know to be wrong.’ If I were cheeky enough, I’d add that an hour a day will also show you what’s wrong and strengthen you not to do it.

And having unburdened himself of these reflections, Bosy the dog admonished Orlando the cat, who was sharpening his claws (anxiously?) on the curtains, went to his pozzie in ‘im indoors’ office, sat down and closed his eyes.

I tiptoed out and did the same.

 

 

 

 

WHY THE AFFABLE MAN, JOHN KEY, STAYS TOP OF THE POPS (Letter to Dompost, December 15)

In connection with the appalling revelations of CIA torture, Jane Bowron (Street sinning, karma and why the US can't handle the truth, December 15) admits we’ve become ‘so used to letting the bad go by and no one owning it or saying it even exists’.

 

Yes. Think outrageous pay packets for public servants, think video beheadings, think dirty dairying, hungry children, axe murderers. Think old people in retirement homes, put away beyond the pale of ordinary society. 

This is why the affable man, John Key, stays top of the pops. While he’s still up there spinning and grinning, New Zealand can pretend everything in the garden’s rosy. We can moralise about the US and its barbaric torture practices but at least they’ve at last admitted it. Our self-delusion will come to an end only when we admit our own barbaric torture. Think abortion.

TORTURE OF ABORTION IS A MORAL ABOMINATION TOO (Letter to the Dom Post, December 11)

‘Torture’, you thunder in your editorial, (Torture report damning for US, December 11) ‘is a moral abomination.’ It’s easy enough to pontificate when you know your readers will agree with you.

Surely sucking a sentient human being limb by limb up a cannula is torture, but because one in three women in this country have by now inflicted this brutal procedure on their own unborn children, the media euphemizes it as ‘the right to choose’.

PUBLISHING LETTERS AGAINST ABORTION REQUIRES FEARLESSNESS (Letter to Dom Post, November 29)

Tom Scott makes me laugh. That’s his job but when he says ‘Newspapers should still be fearless’, I suspect the joke escapes him.

 

My letters to The Dominion Post about abortion are never published. My opinions on other topics are occasionally, but nothing mentioning the ‘a’ word. Thousands of New Zealanders object to our abortion law and it’s misinterpretation and many write letters, but only rarely do even the most innocuous make it into print.  What reason is there for their suppression, but fear?

 

Publishing letters against abortion requires not just professionalism but courage of editorial staff who’ve had abortions or love someone who has. Readers suffering PTSD following abortions would naturally react negatively. So would medical staff who do abortions. Same with school nurses who take teenagers for abortions and lie to their mothers. Pan the camera wider to include the pharmaceuticals and clinic operators who make billions worldwide from the trade. Add in the overwhelming evidence of links between abortion and breast cancer, for instance, which we never read about in The Dominion Post.

 

 

Tom Scott says ‘people need to know stuff’. Too right. What does it take for a newspaper to publish information or letters opposing abortion? Fearlessness.

KILLING BABIES IS OKAY BUT BODY HUGS ARE A NO-NO (Letter to Dom Post, November 28)

The Roger Sutton debacle, says Women’s Minister Louise Sutton, is ‘a win for women’. Really? Who does she think she’s kidding? Not herself - her face on the front page gives the game away. No woman  can really believe that killing babies in the womb is okay but body hugs are a no-no. Society has not ‘evolved’, it’s terminally bewildered and devolving downhill faster and faster.  

That being the case, there’s probably no point in reminding women in the workplace of the Christian principle that any grievance should first be taken privately to the putative offender. Roger Sutton’s obviously a decent man. If the complainant had followed that advice the whole brouhaha would have been avoided - and certain egos unenhanced.

 

THE COLUMN YOU NEARLY DIDN'T GET TO SEE (First published in 'NZ Catholic, November 27)

NZ Catholic editor Peter Grace was asked to withdraw this column from publication. To his everlasting credit, he declined. It appears in today's edition, with a few minor changes, under the title To love as Jesus loves.

        
          We Catholics must all know about ‘the triumph of evil’, how it requires only ‘the silence of good men’. Reputedly posited by the 18^th century Irish statesman Edmund Burke, this idea has served speechmakers well ever since. The last time I heard it trotted out (very appropriately) was just last month, at the Voice for Life Conference in Wellington.

However, Joy Cowley’s views on ‘gayness’ (NZ Catholic, October 5) suggest that for  a 21^st century audience Burke needs an update. Because it seems evil, in a guise he probably never imagined, triumphs now not only by the silence of good men but also by the speech of well-meaning women.

Here’s another quote, this one from Scripture – which I naively thought Mass-going Catholics take as an unimpeachable source. ‘Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameful things with men and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion’ (Rom 1, 27).

But Joy Cowley says St Paul could be wrong. Incorrect. Politically speaking yes, he certainly is, and her popularity as a writer helps to explain her stance. But to suggest any perversion of the truth – stated in the word of God, for heaven’s sake - by the greatest of mystics, apostle and martyr, third in the canon of saints, is preposterous.

Joy then pulls out the old thorn in the flesh theory - St Paul might have been gay. That’s possibly fact, but what’s undeniably fact is, he was celibate.

Pope Francis, in his ineffable way, has warned us of ‘buonismo, a destructive tendency … that in the name of a deceptive mercy  binds wounds without first curing and treating them … It is the temptation of the do-gooders.’ And St Paul says ‘Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God’ (2 Cor 7,1).

 But Joy quotes St John: ‘In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love’ (1 Jn 4, 18). Well, for anyone who isn’t yet perfect in love – and that’s the overwhelming majority,  including me - fear of gay marriage is just common sense: evil is frightening because it’s harmful. 

She asserts that ‘a deep commitment of love’ in homosexual relationships equates with marriage. ‘It’s all about love,’ she says. The trouble with that is, St John’s idea of love is  very different from Joy’s. True Christian love isn’t about feeling, it’s about acting. ‘He who does the will of my Father, he shall enter the kingdom of Heaven’ (Mt 7,21).

Loving means doing God’s will, in other words fulfilling his plan for our perfection by caring for others as much as we care for ourselves, and the best we can hope for ourselves and others is to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Clearly, we need to love as Jesus loves. With the heart of Christ.

 

 

 

 

JUDITH'S EXPECTATIONS OF HONOURABLENESS (Letter to Dom Post, November 26

Judging by Judith Collins’ expression (John Key: No dirt has stuck to my office, November 26), her expectations of Honourableness have got her right over feeling ‘incredibly let down’ by her chum Cameron Slater.

But to avoid similar grief in future she should keep in mind the adage, ‘By their friends you shall know them’.

UN POPULATION FUND MAKES A HIGHFALUTIN PROPOSAL (Letter to Dom Post, November 21)

Quite possibly, a ‘weak United Nations flounders as dictators continue to flourish’ (November 21) because its bureaucracy’s preoccupations include such peace-making imperatives as delivering a ‘demographic dividend’ to a world that’s younger now than ever before.  

Such a highfalutin proposal suggests a similarly absurd means to the end, and it’s this: the UN Population Fund recommends making abortions freely available to adolescents, removing all age of consent, prostitution and drug laws, and reducing parents’ involvement in their children’s sex education.  

With such pressing business on the table, it looks like the under-employed members of the UN war crimes tribunals have been given more important work to do.

 

LEAVING PUTIN TO EAT ALONE (Letter to Dompost, November 19)

So Vladimir Putin ‘has isolated himself, as seen in the cold shoulder other leaders gave him at the G20 meeting’ (The West rationalises away Putin’s aggressive actions, November 19). But if the other leaders gave him the cold shoulder, demonstrably it was they who were isolating Putin. Such behaviour – leaving a guest to eat alone - would surely not be tolerated in a kindergarten.  

If the West wants to understand Putin’s actions which ‘are not rational from a Western point of view’ and if as US Secretary of State John Kerry says, ‘we want to work with Russia where we can’, I suggest the best place to start is at the dinner table. 

BABY MAIA SHARED HER MOTHER'S WOMB WITH THE PARTIAL REMAINS OF HER DEAD SIBLING (Letter to Dom Post, November 12)

As a lay person reading Baby survives despite ‘foreign body’ in womb, November 12, I had to get only as far as the line ‘the only other surgery she’d had was an abortion’ to know baby Maia had shared her mother’s womb with the partial remains of her dead sibling.  

Maia’s mother, who in 2008 aged only fifteen and surely in a pitiable state couldn’t possibly have given truly informed consent to an abortion, had subsequently to endure years of infertility and invasive tests. So I’d like to think that during her ‘horrible pregnancy’ the suppression of that probable diagnosis by the medical staff was an exercise in tact.  

However, the statement by the clinical leader of maternal and foetal medicine at Wellington Hospital, Jay Marlow, that such an ‘unlikely complication would not have crossed the minds of those carrying out the fertility tests’ suggests otherwise. Baby Maia’s experience is a horrible illustration of the blinkers worn for years now by both the media and the medical profession in the face of overwhelming evidence against abortion and its pernicious effects.

 

THE LITURGISTS GET ME A TICKING-OFF FOR CALLING COMMUNION IN THE HAND NASTY NAMES

‘Leaders of the Church have too often been narcissists, gratified and sickeningly excited by their courtiers’

 – Pope Francis, in a 2013 interview with La Repubblica magazine.

 

In my  NZ Catholic September column I described the practice of Communion in the hand was ‘antiquarian, abusive, Lutheran and Protestant’. It wasn’t long before certain liturgists taking exception to these remarks reported them to episcopal authority and I was ticked off for being ‘completely wrong.’
 

There’s only so much you can say in the 500 words I’m allotted by NZ Catholic, so I’m posting here the Church’s documentation for my case (see below).

Putting aside the question of whether it’s possible to return to Communion on the tongue (and why not, the same way it was mandated in 650 AD by the Council of Rouen), Communion in the hand is the most egregious example of damage done in the wake of Vatican II by altering the liturgy illegally to suit personal preference and convenience.
 

I’m not implying our NZ bishops are the ‘narcissists’ so unflatteringly described by Pope Francis. More likely, they just don’t have the energy to buck the trend in the Western Church (although not in the greater part of the world) towards Communion in the hand, which must account in large part for the drastic decline in those episcopates in Mass attendance and priestly and religious vocations.

The great danger is that with the illegal practice of Communion in the hand having succeeded so spectacularly, other harmful changes may be insinuated in the same way.
 

St John of the Cross has something to say about this sort of thing. Firstly he observes that ‘Among the many wiles used by the devil to deceive spiritual persons, the most ordinary is that of deceiving them under an appearance of what is good, not under an appearance of what is evil: for he knows that if they recognize evil, they will scarcely touch it’.  

He then remarks that we should never do anything, ‘however good and full of charity it may seem to be’ without the sanction of obedience. (When did you last hear that word spoken in Church circles – or any others? But without obedience how can we become like Christ who was ‘obedient unto death’ (Phil 2, 8)?)   

In New Zealand we all went along with Communion in the hand thinking it had been mandated by Vatican II when actually it was dreamed up by some rogue bishops (‘narcissists?’, egged on by pseudo-liturgists and innovative priests and religious) in the Netherlands. We’ve been taken for a ride. Read the documentation below and see what you think.  

But I humbly and happily admit my comment that the practice is Lutheran was indeed ‘completely wrong’. 

 

A bishop of the Church, a patristic expert quoted in the following documentation, says that historically not even Lutherans would have received in the hand. In the US most still receive kneeling, on the tongue, but some receive in the hand.

It seems I should have called it Calvinist.

 

IN REGARD TO  COMMUNION IN THE HAND BEING ‘ANTIQUARIAN’:

From De modo Sanctam Communionem ministrandi (Memoriale Domini)

 1275 [5] ’It is certainly true that ancient usage once allowed the faithful to take this Divine Food in their hands and to place it in their mouths themselves. … However, the Church's prescriptions and the evidence of the Fathers make it abundantly clear that the greatest reverence was shown the Blessed Sacrament, and that people acted with the greatest prudence.’ This is not now the case.

‘1276 [6] Further, the care and the ministry of the Body and Blood of Christ was specially committed to sacred ministers or to men especially designated for this purpose’. This is not now the case. And speaking of Communion in the hand, Pius XII warned that ’the liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed  more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savour and aroma of antiquity.’ (My emphases.)

AS TO COMMUNION IN THE HAND BEING ‘ABUSIVE’ (MEANING MISAPPLIED, IMPROPER):

From the Secretary of State, June 3, 1968: ‘the bishops must be reminded of their responsibility that they must prevent …  the indiscriminate spread of this practice (Communion in the hand) which is not contrary to the doctrine but in practice is very disputable and dangerous.’ (My emphasis.)

From a letter sent sent by the Concilium to all the Latin bishops of the world, October 1968:

1.‘In diverse locations, at least since two or three years ago, some priests without due authorization[109] place the Eucharist in the hand of the faithful, who then places it in their mouths. This manner of acting is spreading rapidly, especially in the more cultured environments and in small groups, and finds favor among laypersons[110], priests and nuns.[111]

2.       It appears that there is a new practice established here and that it is the work of a small number of priests and laypersons that look to impose their own point of view on others, and force the hand of authority. (My emphasis.) To approve it would be to encourage these persons who are never[113] satisfied with the laws of the Church.

3.       And above all a decrease of respect to the Eucharistic worship should be feared. To receive Communion in the hand would seem to many to be less dignified and less respectful (my emphasis).

4.      One should also ask oneself, with uneasiness, if the fragments of the Consecrated Bread will always be picked up and consumed with all the respect It deserves. What will happen to the Particles in the hands of those who do not have the delicacy and the awareness[114] to quickly pick them up?  Just recently I picked up and consumed a sliver (the Body and Blood of Our Lord, whole and entire) of the Host which had lain unnoticed on the carpet in front of the sanctuary for at least 24 hours. The parish priest seemed unconcerned.

5.   Should not an increase of desecrations and irreverences on the part of ill-intentioned persons be feared, or of those of little faith? Ill-prepared and poorly instructed people who receive the Eucharistic Bread in their hand, will they not end up equating It to ordinary bread, or to simply blessed bread?[115]

6. By easily giving in to this very important point of Eucharistic worship, the danger exists that the audacity of the renovators will dare so much as to be directed towards other sectors, which would bring about an irreparable damage to the faith and worship of the Eucharist. …(My emphasis.)

[12] A change in a matter of such importance, based on a most ancient and venerable tradition, does not merely affect discipline. It carries with it certain dangers that may arise from the new manner of administering Holy Communion: the danger of a loss of reverence for the August Sacrament of the altar, of profanation, of adulterating the true doctrine.

1281  [15]The Holy Father has decided not to change the existing way of administering Holy Communion to the faithful.

 The disposition:

[16] The Apostolic See therefore emphatically urges bishops, priests and laity to carefully[3] obey the law which is still valid and which has again been confirmed. It urges them to take into account the judgment given by the majority of Catholic bishops, of the rite now in use in the liturgy, and of the common good of the Church.’

From the letter which concedes the indult to the Episcopal Conferences to distribute Holy Communion in the hand to the faithful, when all of the required conditions are met:

‘Each bishop may authorize in his dioceses the introduction of the new rite to distribute Communion (in the hand), with the condition that all occasion of scandal to the faithful be avoided, and all danger of irreverence toward the Eucharist be avoided’ (my emphasis). This condition was not met.

‘There is a twofold purpose here: that none will find in the new rite anything disturbing to personal devotion toward the Eucharist; that this sacrament, the source and cause of unity by its very nature, will not become an occasion of discord between members of the faithful.’(My emphasis.)

‘The rite of Communion in the hand must not be put into practice indiscriminately.’

‘It is necessary to have the introduction of the rite preceded by an effective catechesis.’

‘This catechesis must succeed in excluding any suggestion that there is a lessening of faith in the Eucharistic presence and in excluding as well any danger or hint of danger of profaning the Eucharist.’ (My emphases.)

That there has been a lessening of faith is obvious from the demeanour of people approaching and receiving the Eucharist. As an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion I’ve had to stop people from carrying the Host away after receiving.

THAT COMMUNION IN THE HAND IS ‘LUTHERAN’:

In regard to this comment I humbly and happily acknowledge I was mistaken. According to Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana in Kazakhstan, a Patristic expert, Communion in the hand wasn't practiced even by the Lutherans. "The Lutherans have until quite recently, and till today in Scandinavian lands, preserved communion kneeling and on the tongue."

THAT COMMUNION IN THE HAND IS ‘PROTESTANT’:

From Martin Bucer (1491-1551),counsellor of the Anglican reform:

‘ [49] In fact I have no doubt that the (Roman Catholic) usage of not putting these sacraments in the hands of the faithful has been introduced out of a double superstition, firstly the false honour they wished to show to this sacrament, and secondly the wicked arrogance of priests claiming a greater holiness than that of the people in Christ, by virtue of the oil of consecration.

The Lord undoubtedly gave these, his sacred symbols, into the hands of the apostles, and no one who has read the records of the ancients can be in any doubt that this was the usage observed by the churches until the advent of the tyranny of the Roman Antichrist.

As, therefore, every superstition of the Roman Antichrist is to be detested, and the simplicity of Christ, and the Apostles, and the ancient churches is to be recalled, I should wish that pastors and teachers of the people should be commanded that each is faithfully to teach his people that it is superstitious and wicked to think that the hands of those who truly believe in Christ are less pure than their mouths, or that the hands of ministers are holier than the hands of the laity, so that it would be wicked, or less fitting, as was formerly wrongly believed by the ordinary folk, for the laity to receive these sacraments in the hand: and therefore that the indications of this wicked belief be removed, as that ministers may handle the sacraments, but not allow the laity to do so, and instead put the sacraments into the mouth which is not only foreign to what was instituted by the Lord but offensive to human reason.

In that way good men will be easily brought to the point of all receiving the sacred symbols in the hand.’- Quoted by D. Harrison, The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, London, 1968, p. 392. Cf. E.C. Whitaker, Martin Bucer and the Book of Common Prayer, London, 1974.

 PAPAL STATEMENTS ON THE SUBJECT OF COMMUNION IN THE HAND:

Pius XII: ‘The Holy Father does not consider it opportune that the Sacred Particle be distributed in the hand.’

Pope Paul VI:  (The bishop) should not forget that … the Holy See … vehemently exhorts him to submit to the law in force’ (i.e. Communion on the tongue).

St John Paul II: ‘These offenses not only weigh upon the conscience of those responsible in this manner of acting, but also to the pastors of the church who have not been vigilant enough regarding the attitude of the faithful towards the Eucharist’(Domin. Cenae, 11). (My emphasis.) … To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained, one which indicates an active participation in the ministry of the Eucharist (though it recognizes that in the case of a justified necessity, a layman can be authorized)’ Domin. Cenae, 11.

Note: As the Church states elsewhere, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion are justified only when the Mass would be unduly lengthened by the distribution of the Sacrament only by the ordained. So ‘a justified necessity’ would be rare.

 

 

FROGS DON'T TURN INTO PRINCES BUT GOD DOES DRAW GOOD OUT OF EVIL (Letter to Dompost, November 11)

I respect Peter Bertram (Letters, November 11) no matter what he believes, and I can easily accept that a frog doesn’t turn into a prince. But although I know nothing about evolution,  I do know something about God.

 He does draw good out of evil. I’m surprised that Bertram, who’s obviously a good teacher, hasn’t noticed the evidence for that which is all around us.

'DISAPPEARED' BABIES ARE PATIENTS TOO (Letter to Dompost, November 11)

General surgeon Michael Shields says ‘disappeared’ patient numbers are a scandal. Too right they are.

The true scandal is the thousands of ‘disappeared’ babies who were patients as much as their mothers, and who also ‘cause endless grief’.

They turn up again counted in our annual abortion statistics so we can’t pretend they were never there, and successive Ministers have allowed this scandal to continue for thirty-seven years.

DOMPOST'S SOLUTION TO 'HORDES OF AGING BABY BOOMERS' (Letter to Dom Post, November 10)

Oh, I get it. By enthusiastically championing abortion, The Dominion Post and the rest of the media helped create the problem of ‘hordes of aging baby boomers’ (Editorial, November 6). But having read the entire page devoted to ‘ensuring the right to die’ (November 8), I see you have the solution.

 

You’re keen for the old folks to restore balance (which in your coverage of the issue was conspicuous by its absence) by doing the decent thing and killing themselves off.

WHICH TOPIC MADE IT INTO THE DOMPOST LETTERS COLUMN? EUTHANASIA OR THE 'A' WORD?

I wrote these letters to The Dominion Post on two consecutive days, realising only one if either would make it into print, and realising which it would be.

I sent both to illustrate the way The Dominion Post excludes all but the most innocuous letters on the topic of abortion.

On November 4:

Too right, hospitals are dangerous places (Speak out for hospital safety). Every year countless healthy women go into hospital with unborn babies and come out with post-abortion syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, a perforated uterus, cervical injury, sexual dysfunction, a predisposition to breast cancer, alcohol and drug dependency and/or child abuse.

Is that promoting ‘what’s right for the patient’ as advocated by Dr Brian Robinson, senior lecturer at Victoria University’s Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health? Why doesn’t Dr Robinson count these cases as ‘preventable serious adverse events?

On November 5:

Philip Broderick (Hoping to choose when to call it quits) wants the right to decide when he dies – even if the thought of making that decision fills him with horror. It’s like he’s standing on a very high ledge, getting ready to jump. Your story, with its reference to the tragic suicide of Brittany Maynard, sounds like we’re saying ‘Go ahead, jump!’

But what’s our natural, instinctive reaction? We yell, ‘No no, don’t jump!’ 

No prizes for guessing right. The second letter was printed November 8. The first was relegated with countless others on the same subject, to the Dom Post's shredding machine.
 

JOE BENNETT DESCENDS TO CLICHE (Letter to the Dompost, October 29)l

Interesting how when addressing the topic of life after death (‘Dainty words for death a waste of breath’, October 29), Joe Bennett’s formidable writing skills desert him and he descends via fluffy clouds and harps to what he abhors – cliche.

Maybe he subconsciously realises there are no words to describe the divine.

NO, THE TRUTH CAN'T BE CHANGED (Letter to Dompost, October 22)

No, the truth can’t be changed (Pope Francis meets opposition from church traditionalists, October 21).

That fact goes a long way towards explaining the tension between the Catholic Church which professes Jesus Christ who being Truth will never change, and the media whose existence depends on change and so are hell-bent, one might say, on its promotion.

GRATITUDE ATTRACTS FURTHER BLESSINGS (Letter to Dom Post, October 9)

After the Angelic intervention which probably saved Tim Allcock’s life (Crash victim now believes in Angels, A1, October 9), instead of buying a Lotto ticket he could buy Remi the bull terrier a harness so she doesn’t lose hers.  

And he should thank God. He wasn’t ‘lucky’ to be found, he was blessed, and gratitude attracts further blessings.

 

WORRYING ABOUT THE TRUCK SPACE PLAN (Letter published in the Dom Post, October 4)

So truckies are worried about a proposed cycle space plan (October 1),whether there’ll be room for their lumbering leviathans.

The rest of us worry about the truck space plan. Is there one?

ALL BLACKS ARE IDOLS WITH FEET OF CLAY (Letter to Dompost, September 30)

‘Where’, Jane Bowron asks plaintively (September 29) ‘are the ABs’ enforcers as they go on breaking the rules?’ (September 29.) She calls the All Blacks ‘role models’ and NZ Rugby Players’ Association boss calls them ‘leading public figures’.

Let’s be honest and call them idols and acknowledge it’s our fault for setting them up, and realise they have feet of clay.

CONTRACEPTION WAS A PANDORA'S BOX (Letter to Dom Post, September 25)

What a Pandora’s box contraception turned out to be. We thought it would give us ceaseless sex with no consequences.  

But sometimes the pill didn’t work and voila! we had state-funded abortions and post-traumatic stress disorder. Then we had state-funded tubal ligations. But they didn’t always work either and voila! we now have children whose mothers sue ACC for their expenses.  

The media would seem to prove us right about the ceaseless sex but in regard to other consequences of contraception, no one saw any coming but the Catholic Church.

WHAT A CHEEK, TELLING US WE'LL HAVE A REFERENDUM (Letter printed (somewhat munted) in Dom Post, September 27)

Uh, oh, we’re back on Planet Key. What a cheek, telling us we’ll have a referendum on the flag next year, when he ignored the referendum on anti-smacking in 2009.

We may have been silly enough to vote for him on Saturday but we’re not so silly as to think a referendum initiated by John Key should be any more binding – or less expensive - than one initiated by us lowly citizens.

AN ANSWER FOR THE GREENS' FAILURE (Letter to Dom Post, September 22)

If the ‘brown girl in red lippy’ (September 22) and the rest of the devastated Greens want an answer for their failure in this election they’ll find it in their policy to decriminalise abortion.

Young voters especially are getting savvy on this subject - 3-D ultrasounds and smartphone apps show them a baby that’s alive and kicking and they want to keep it that way.

WHY 'POOR FAMILIES WASTE MONEY' (Letter to Dom Post, September 17)

Keith Thomas (Letters, September 16) asks why ‘poor families waste money’. Because parents are diverted from their primary employment of caring for their children and driven out of the home into the work force, because society is utterly warped by materialism, because as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said years ago, we have forgotten God.

And which of the parties in Saturday’s line-up has the political will to address that problem?

I CAN'T GET EXCITED ABOUT MORE 'COMPENSATION' FOR EGG DONORS (Letter to Dom Post, September 17)

I’m sorry, but I can’t get excited about what Andrew Murray of Fertility Associates Wellington sees as a need for more ‘compensation’ here for egg donors for women in their 40s trying to conceive. Quite apart from the highly questionable ethics of surrogacy, they’ve made their bed and can lie on it, like all the women who forgo a career to have babies in their 20s and live with the consequences.

 

Murray’s exercised about driving couples offshore with associated  ‘risks for families to the health and wellbeing of mother and baby and the large financial investment’. (Not to mention loss of customers onshore.) What about men aged 70+ being accepted for hugely expensive IVF treatment? Should he not be exercised about consequent multiple pregnancies - which he acknowledges as frequently having expensive complications - a mother’s life-threatening illnesses, the grief of deaths in utero and in at least one case, resulting poverty and stress culminating in the removal of surviving children by the supposedly benevolent offices of Child, Youth and Family?

 

Dr Murray is entitled of course, to make a living. But how much of a living, and at what cost to others?

SPRAYING GORSE IS DAFTER THAN YOU THINK (Letter published in Dompost, September 15)

No, Susan Thrasher isn’t the only one who thinks sprayed gorse is an eyesore (Letters, September 15). And ‘the killing off of substantial plants or trees’ by spraying is even dafter than she thinks. You have only to leave gorse alone long enough for those tree seedlings to grow up through it, say 20-25 years, and it’s goodbye gorse. It can’t survive in shade.

My brother Karl commented that I must be one of the few people still alive who know where to put the word 'only'.

That was nice of him. Except as 'one of the few people still alive' I wonder how long I have to live. Hmmm.

EAVESDROPPERS HEAR NO GOOD FOR THEMSELVES (Letter to Dom Post, Sept 5)

Nick Hager’s book Dirty Politics, an attempt by the Left to damage National, ‘seems to have damaged Labour’ (September 5). As hacking emails is the new version of eavesdropping, we may conclude that not only do eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves, they hear no good for themselves, either.

ACC SHOULD BE PAYING US ALL TO GO TO YOGA (Letter to Dom Post, August 14)

If people losing their balance are costing the country 9 million days of lost productivity a year (August 14), maybe ACC should be paying us all to go to yoga.

BEST MOVES FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOL PRINCIPALS (Letter to 'NZ Catholic, August 12)

My reaction to the NZ Catholic Primary Principals ‘learning dance moves’ (NZ Catholic, July 26 - August 9) was one of dismay, which judging by their faces I suspect was shared by the principals themselves.

In view of the grave and fundamental nature of the problems besetting our schools, I’d have thought the best and only moves necessary for ‘Igniting the Spirit of Catholic leadership’ would be making the Sign of the Cross, kneeling, standing, shaking hands and processing for Holy Communion as surely they would have done, at Mass.

BRING BRIDAL COUPLES BACK WHERE THEY BELONG (Letter to Dom Post, August 7)

As an out-of-towner, maybe my opinion on the plan to charge for using public space in Wellington doesn’t count, but I say go for it! Charge like the Light Brigade and send bridal couples back into the churches where they belong.

HUMILITY IS MOST ELOQUENTLY EXPRESSED IN THE LITURGY BY KNEELING (First published in 'NZ Catholic', August 10)

A Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger story depicts the devil, ordered by God to reveal himself to one of the desert fathers, as ‘black and ugly, with frightening thin limbs but most strikingly, he had no knees.’

          You get the picture? If not, ponder the cardinal’s comment, that ‘the inability to kneel is seen as the very essence of the diabolical’. Now, wait on. He wasn’t saying people who can’t kneel are agents of Satan or I’d be looking sideways at ’im indoors, who like so many others has had a knee replacement.

But he did say modern culture (has) ‘turned away from the faith and no longer knows the One before whom kneeling is the right, indeed the intrinsically necessary gesture. The man who learns to believe learns also to kneel, and a faith or liturgy no longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core. Where it has been lost, kneeling must be rediscovered.’

You may be thinking thank God for Pope Francis, who’s more down to earth (not literally maybe, because his knee’s dodgy) but metaphorically his earthiness translates as humility, the foundation of all virtue, which is most eloquently expressed in the liturgy by kneeling - and now many churches, including my own, have no kneelers. In a former life, as parish council chairperson I presided over their removal, along with the altar rails.

Post-Vatican II, changes were made which in hindsight seem manifestations of a subdued mass hysteria, changes many regret as I regret those kneelers; changes never mandated but post factum reluctantly permitted, like the even more regrettable practice of communion in the hand.

Someone once told me that when he dies and goes before Christ for the particular judgment he’ll stand, ‘in respect’. A Christian teenager’s response to that might be ‘LOL’; mine is ‘yeah, right’: standing, as he might if a woman enters a room, when on entering the presence of the Supreme Judge he immediately, fully realizes for the first time the awfulness of sin generally and his specifically …

As the subtext or meaning of a play is revealed by the actors’ technique, so do our liturgical actions betray our level of awareness of the Real Presence. When unconsecrated hands give or take the Host, when we help ourselves to communion, when communion’s given to those not ‘in communion’, our actions don’t ring true.

When non-Catholics see us at Mass queueing like we’re at the supermarket checkout and being served as if in a cafe, how can they believe that we believe what we say we believe? If they can’t believe us, are they likely to believe the mystery of transubstantiation, or desire that conversion which confers the awesome privilege of daily communion?  

Our church now has kneeling pads, painstakingly handmade by a parishioner. Perhaps they symbolise a Spirit-driven momentum to restore due reverence by kneeling and by Communion on the tongue.

Lex orandi, lex credendi – we pray as we believe. To believe we have to know; to know we have to pray.

 

NICE BUT NASTY - ANIMAL AGENDA AOTEAROA LINKS ANIMAL CRUELTY TO CHILD ABUSE (Letter to Dom Post, July 31)

It’s nice that Catriona MacLennon and Animal Agenda Aotearoa care about animals (Feeble animal welfare laws should be an election issue, July 30). But it’s nasty that they can recognise a ‘link between animal cruelty, child abuse and domestic violence’ but not the link between cruelty to children before birth (abortion) and after birth (child abuse).  

It’s even nastier that they care about animals as ‘sentient beings capable of feeling’ but not apparently children in utero who suck their thumbs, respond to music, to their mother’s voice and to pain, who are routinely put down with absolutely no regard for the feelings they are scientifically proven to possess.

THE 'WORRIED WELL' ARE A CONSEQUENCE OF AGNOSTICISM, ATHEISM AND APOSTASY (Letter to Dom Post, July 29)

Emeritus professor of sociology Frank Furedi, who reckons historically we’ve fetishised food and that we’ve gone back to gluttony being one of the deadly sins (Cyberchondria is catching, July 29), must be living in a time warp. If gluttony were still regarded as deadly we’d hardly be obsessing about food the way we do now, as never in the past. The ‘huge rises in the worried well’ are consequences of agnosticism, atheism and apostasy: healthy people who have no belief in the life to come are naturally desperate to last as long as possible in this one.

I THOUGHT ALL PAEDOPHILES WERE CATHOLIC PRIESTS (Letter to Dom Post, July 18)

What? The Dominion Post reporting (10,000 paedophile suspects, July 18) paedophile teachers, doctors, police staff and, former police officers? How can this be? I thought all paedophiles were Catholic priests.

FAMILY VIOLENCE IS NURTURED IN THE WOMB (Letter to Dompost, July 21)

A moment’s reflection and a little common sense are enough to show that family violence (Group seeks unity on partner violence, July 21) is nurtured where the family is nurtured, in the womb. Abortion is the main driver of this horrific ‘epidemic’ of abuse; for the relative peace and prosperity we once enjoyed we must revisit and rewrite the CS&A Act of 1977. On this issue, to find The Way Forward recommended by the Impact Collective we need to go backward.

I THOUGHT ALL PAEDOPHILES WERE CATHOLIC PRIESTS (Letter to Dom Post, July 18)

What? The Dominion Post reporting (10,000 paedophile suspects, July 18) paedophile teachers, doctors, police staff and, former police officers? How can this be? I thought all paedophiles were Catholic priests.

GREAT NATIONS START BY ENSURING ACCESS TO LIFE ITSELF (Letter to Dom Post, July 16)

When Paul McDonald of Massey University (July 15) says ‘great nations and nation builders start by ensuring every resident has access to basic necessities of life’, he gets it nearly right. To be exactly right he needs to say great nations start by ensuring access to life itself, especially for residents of the nation’s wombs.

WHEN DOES A 'FETUS' MORPH INTO AN 'UNBORN NEPHEW? (Letter to the Dom Post, July 17)

Reading Man guilty of crash that killed unborn nephew (July 17), I wondered what is the defining moment when a fetus, which can legally be killed right up to full term by abortion and go supposedly unnoticed except as a statistic, morphs into an ‘unborn nephew’ whose loss is rightly mourned.

SQUARING LUCAN'S LOVE FOR HIS HAIR WITH HIS LOVE FOR HIS SCHOOL (Letter published in the Dom Post, July 15)

You have to wonder how Lucan Battison (School must cough up $24,000 for hair bill, July 11) squares the cost of his hairdo – actually apparently more like $32,000 - with the love he professes for his school. Or with the love he professes for his faith, which in essence instructs him to put the interests of his classmates before his own.

LUCAN WILL LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LAW AND JUSTICE (Letter to Dom Post, June 28)

So Lucan Battison (No school ball, no footy for Lucan, June 28) didn’t break the law. What he’s learned is, disobedience and disrespect for his classmates is all right with the world. When he eventually learns it’s not all right with God, he’ll realise the difference between the law and justice.

CATHOLICS DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW (First published in 'NZ Catholic', July 7)

Our home has been graced with the presence of Our Lady of the Place, who from her niche under a bay tree keeps watch over our front door. Perched on a broken culvert pipe salvaged from the farm, she was blessed recently by Fr Paul Gurr, O Carm.

It was a misty moisty morning. Father Paul’s brown cassock echoed the habit of an eremitical nun, a friend and advisor to us lay Carmelites who stood by with the Moderator for Australasia, ‘im indoors (outdoors for once) and my pious poodle Bosy. We gave her the title chosen by the first Carmelites and Father Paul, an Australian singer of note, pleasured her by ‘silencing all the songbirds’ with a song by Handel.

I’d found her by climbing a ladder through cobwebs and a trapdoor into the belfry of our church. As ‘Queen of Heaven’ she once upon a time on  Sundays presided over us convent girls on Our Lady’s side (as opposed to boys on the Sacred Heart side) with the Sisters of St Joseph of Nazareth right behind, within prodding distance. She’d been sent to the belfry in the  ‘70s, when the tabernacle was demoted to her place on the sanctuary sidelines.

On Monday mornings we kids acquired a taste for schadenfreude as occasionally an unfortunate was stood up in class and asked, why weren’t you at Mass yesterday? I was never thus - my parents were always there, several pews back, once a month separated like their children behind banners proclaiming the Holy Name Society and the Catholic Women’s League (the latter, broadly speaking, wives of the former).

At Communion time none of us kids stayed in the pews. We’d been baptised practically at birth and dragooned, some would now say, into First Holy Communion at age seven. Two of us were young for our class and had to wait six months to be served a special breakfast afterwards on our own by the nuns in the convent parlour: boiled eggs.

Since then two generations have grown up and largely gone. Now we must welcome into our schools the non-baptised children of parents who haven’t been sufficiently educated in the faith, the primary reason being that prayer is insufficiently taught and known. Knowledge being a gift of the Holy Spirit received in baptism, we now don’t know what we don’t know. See what a bind we’re in?

I’m currently reading Pope Francis: Untying the Knots, named for a painting of Mary in Germany which Francis ‘in exile’ had copied and took back to Argentina. There on the monthly anniversary of her installation thousands of pilgrims now revere her as the Mother who can solve our knottiest problems.

It seems to me that teachers, parents and children need to put prayer first and in prayer, under any title Mary is our paradigm. ‘Thou art careful and art troubled about many things: but one thing is necessary’ (Lk 10: 41, 42).

No one knows better than Mary what Jesus meant. Prayer.