HOW THE HOLOCAUST BEGAN (letter published in Dom Post, April 25)

National screening unit clinical director Dr Jane O’Hallahan says pregnancy screening, which in Danielle Bolt’s case meant being told to  ‘terminate’ her Down syndrome baby  (April 21), is “optional”.

Actually what happens is, according to the Ministry of Health, that “all pregnant women are advised” of screening. Now why would the Health Department advise of it, if they didn’t think it advisable? Naturally, many women ‘advised’ of such an ‘option’ by the Health Department infer that it’s in their best interests and go ahead. 

The NSU talks tendentiously about ‘risk’. What risk? The risk of a beautiful baby like Noa? Or do they really mean the risk of cost to the government incurred by life-long care for such a beautiful human being?

The NSU admits that women whose screening defines them as at ‘increased risk’ (of a beautiful baby like Noa!), who are recommended to undergo a diagnostic test, run the very real risk of iatrogenic miscarriage. And women who’ve already had a disabled child are ‘offered’ a referral to ‘a specialist obstetrician’. No prizes for guessing what their ‘speciality’ is.

Is eugenics the Next Big Thing? We would do well to remember that the Holocaust began with Hitler killing the disabled.

MODERN BIBLES READ LIKE JANET AND JOHN (Letter to NZ Catholic, April 18)

“Everyone serves .. the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk” (NZ Catholic April 9 –22).

Did Jews habitually get drunk at weddings? That verse has always struck me as an insult to Jewish culture.

However I now have a Douay-Rheims Bible, a scrupulously faithful translation into English of the Latin Vulgate which was translated by St Jerome from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic and confirmed at the Council of Trent as “authentic ... no one should dare or presume under any pretext to reject it”. But after more than six centuries of use and canonising God only knows how many saints formed exclusively by the Douay, the Church did reject it.

The Douay reads “ ...when men have well drunk, then that (wine) which is worse”. Drinking well doesn’t mean becoming drunk, it means enjoying good wine.

Every day I find subtleties, nuances and depths of meaning in the Douay lacking in the new translations. Ah, you might say, modern translators know so much more. But they didn’t have the 2nd and 3rd centuries’manuscripts rendered carefully into Latin by St Jerome. And anyway, as Teresa of Avila might say, “it’s not a question of knowing much but of loving much”.

By comparison with the Douay-Rheims, modern bibles read like Janet and John.

GYM BUDDY AT 102 (Letter to Dom Post, April 13

Gym buddy at 102 – no sweat (April 13) gets a wonderful story inside out.

Asked how he's got to be a hundred years old, centenarian Len Darr doesn’t say it was by going to the gym, or even by eating well. He says “keeping my body fit is a duty, because my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, as what we call God”.

Sadly, the wisdom of one hundred years of good living is discounted in favour of the usual hype around promoting gyms. Len isn’t happy because he does “all the exercises”. He’s happy because he is one with God.

But the nub of the story doesn’t make the headline. That’s because even Darr himself doubts he’ll be believed.

I believe you, Len. Absolutely.

SBW AND THE LOGO (Letter printed in Dompost, April 15)

Is it just me, or is it truly extraordinary that none of the raft of letters on the subject of SBW (April 12) seriously considers his grounds for covering up that bank logo on his rugby jersey?

Williams’ action could fairly be described as conscientious objection. He’s walking the talk of his religious beliefs.

Thank you, Sonny Bill, for showing us how.

ABUSE, SEX CRIMES SPUR EXPANDED POLICE FORCE (Letter to Dom Post, April 11)

I wonder how mainstream media journalists feel about stories like Abuse, sex crimes spur expanded police force (April 11) and revelations like “family violence incidents rose 55 per cent in seven years”.

 

Because the media (mostly print) are accessories after the fact. For years they’ve denied the reality that domestic violence really begins in that most intimate home – the root of the word ‘domestic’ is the Latin ‘domus’ meaning ‘home’ – a home which is common to us all, our mother’s womb.

A meta-analysis showing abortion increases mental ill-health in women by 81 per cent has been criticised, as is only to be expected, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against abortion. Common sense is all that’s needed to identify the invasion of the uterus by force, or through the mother’s bloodstream by toxic chemicals, as violence.

 

I’m more sorry than I can say but the grisly truth is, this violence is perpetrated by the mother and accordingly permeates all strata of society.

The Dominion Post, preferring to entertain and distract rather than inform, gives the best part of three pages to John Clarke.

 

Will it give a couple of column inches to the truth? I doubt it.

WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Some outfit called 'Newshub' is busybodying around the issue of euthanasia. I just received an email asking me to state whether I support giving New Zealanders with terminal illness the 'right' to choose when they die.

So okay, this was my reply:

I do NOT support a 'right' to choose when to die which would inevitably morph into a duty to die. Just what is a 'terminal' illness, anyway? Altzheimer's is an illness and its sufferers are going to die sooner or later so aren't Altzheimer's or dementia  'terminal' illnesses?

Who's going to decide whether it is or not? And who would exercise the 'right' to die on behalf of those people?

New Zealanders are people of compassion, commonsense and courage. The Parliamentary select committee enquiring into euthanasia has already discovered that. 78% of New Zealanders do NOT support this absurdity.

We have more important things to think about.

A LIFETIME IN THE PUBLIC EYE (Letter to Dom Post, April 10)

During her lifetime in the public eye (April 10), Dame Margaret Bazley told police and the rugby board they had to hire women to say “we don’t tolerate drunkenness, violence and sexual abuse”.

Go back a bit, to the time when Bazley began her career, when the police and rugby were all-male preserves, and consider how much time and money was spent combatting such behaviour. Not a lot. And don’t tell me it was all swept under the carpet.

Back then, broadly speaking boys and girls alike grew up with both a mother and father present to them. The “valuable perspectives” Bazley now advises were then acquired holistically, built in by absorbing the values and attitudes of the opposing sex from parents who chose in marriage to support each other and their offspring, life-long.

Of course there’s no going back, but let’s reflect on the fact that lack of commitment often brings tragedy in its train.

TO THOSE YOU LOVE MORE, YOU GIVE MORE

Every night I send my five long-suffering adult children a collective email, and every email ends with what for lack of a better expression I call a 'holy thought'.

Tonight's was taken from the works of that stupendous saint, Teresa of Avila. I thought it important enough, and a truth so little known and acknowledged, that I should post it here:

You accomplished your will in him (Christ) through the trials, sorrows, injuries and persecutions he suffered until his death on a cross.

See here what you gave the one you loved most. These are your gifts as long as we are in this world. You give according to the love you bear us: to those you love more, you give more of these gifts; to those you love less, you give less.

And you give according to the courage you see in each of us and the love each has for you; whoever loves you much will be able to suffer much; whoever loves you little will be capable of little.