VATICAN INSTALS LUTHER AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS (Letter to NZ Catholic, Dec 1)

It wasn’t a “Reformation anniversary marked in Auckland” (NZ Catholic, Nov. 19). According to Cardinal Gerhard Muller, in truth it was the anniversary of “a revolution against the Holy Spirit”. “Luther”, says Cardinal Muller, “abandoned all the principles of the Catholic faith, Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium. The Reformation was disastrous”.

Luther deleted seven books from the Bible and excused his disordered lifestyle as justified by faith alone, a heresy condemned by the Council of Trent. He would hurl his faeces at the devil who he said, visited him in his cell at night. He was excommunicated.

It mystifies me that Palmerston North’s cathedral walls could be papered with bumf about this man, who had no intention of ‘reforming’ the Church, which as instituted by Christ cannot be ‘reformed’ -  although its members did and always will, need reform.

It astonishes me that Bishop Dunn could give thanks for “the gifts of the Reformation”. Unless he meant Luther’s legacy of 105 saints hanged, drawn and quartered defending the faith in England alone.

It appals me that the Vatican can commemorate Luther with a “special postage stamp” installing him in the place of John and the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the foot of the Cross.

Loving our Protestant brethren doesn't mean rewriting history. This is ecumenism gone mad. 

THE ABORTION BUSINESS: A GOOSE THAT LAYS A GOLDEN EGG

Elise du Fresne says on Facebook that 'the top hits on google' were to links showing no connection between abortion and breast cancer.

My reply:

The fact that the top hits on google show links to ‘highly reputable organisations’ saying there’s no link between abortion and breast cancer demonstrates, first up, an exercise in wishful thinking.

Women who’ve had an abortion understandably want ‘proof’ they’re not going to get breast cancer. Women who have breast cancer want ‘proof’ their abortion wasn’t its cause. So they google the stuff that ‘proves’ they’re right.

Secondly, ‘highly reputable organisations’ such as Planned Parenthood and its affiliates make billions out of abortions - which are a major driver for breast cancer. IPPF has considerable influence at United Nations, claiming a universal right not just to abortion but for ‘access to’ abortion (i.e. Planned Parenthood services), including for adolescents. The American Cancer Society has in the past funded Planned Parenthood. The Centres for Disease Control employs Dr Deborah Nucatola, infamously caught on camera enjoying salad and a glass of wine while discussing which bits of unborn babies mustn’t be crushed during abortion because Planned Parenthood wants them preserved intact, to sell them. Money talks, and Planned Parenthood's billions, made from women's misery, tell a tale of corruption.

And then there are the huge pharmaceutical conglomerates which fund ‘research’ on ABC, while making billions out of soaring costs of chemotherapy for breast cancer. Not to mention the pill, another established risk factor for breast cancer.

Go figure. Would these outfits want to kill the goose who lays the golden egg?

Thirdly, the first study showing the tobacco/cancer link was published in 1929, but it wasn’t till 1957 that the National Cancer Institute issued the first warning. Turkeys don’t vote for an early Christmas.

They might not be ‘top hits’ on google, but the reports from India, China, Bangladesh, Iran, Sri Lanka and Russia, being disinterested, are also far more credible.

VIOLENT MOTHERS, VIOLENT SONS (letter to Dom Post, Nov 26)

“One of the biggest drivers of the prison population,” posits Kelvin Davis, Minister of Sunshine (November 25) “is violence”. Well yes, Kelvin, we read on that on the previous page: 21 per cent of prisoners are violent.

“What are the drivers of violence?” Kelvin asks. “Is it lack of money, having no hope, or despair?” Well no, Kelvin, it’s more basic than that. Lacking money doesn’t make a man violent, and neither does hopelessness or despair.

Violence is a behaviour which can be learned in ways more subtle than example and demonstration, and more deadly. Abortion, because it’s inflicted on the most helpless of victims, by the victim’s own mother, is the ultimate violence. And violent mothers make for violent sons - and daughters.

Those mothers might well be victims themselves, of course – of poverty perhaps, or bullying by their partner or father, or ignorance - but they're not helpless.

Pregnancy Help, St Vincent de Paul and Family Life International are only three of the agencies which offer women help and hope of an end to violence.

DISAPPOINTED, DISGRUNTLED, DISILLUSIONED CATHOLICS (letter to NZ Catholic, Nov 19)

Dan Stollenwerk’s assertion (NZ Catholic, Nov 5), “the hierarchical Catholic Church has lost some of its moral authority” is something of an understatement. “Contemptible” (Mal 1,7) in the eyes of the world, more like it - basically for failing, since Vatican II, to preach God’s word.

 

“Thou shalt not have strange gods” (Deut 5, 7) Not the god of feminist ideology, nor the god of “new insights” proposed by Bishop Charles Drennan (same issue), for “Jesus Christ is the same for ever” (Heb 13, 8). Changes never mandated by Vatican II, foisted on hapless congregations (the most egregious being Communion in the hand), have severely vitiated reverence for the Blessed Sacrament in lay and clergy alike.

Obviously +Charles has difficulty with compound sentences, but difficulties are a grace. And the core business of the Church - working out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12) – will be served in the Mass, the summit and centre of our faith, not by dumbing it down, but by raising minds and hearts from the mire of quotidian life to gaze upon eternal realities.

“What happens next?” asks Bishop Charles. If the bishops have their way, the answer is many more desertions from the ranks of what used rightly to be called 'the Church militant' by disappointed, disgruntled, disillusioned Catholics.

"SOME THINGS ARE WICKED" (letter to Dom Post, Nov 16)

“We hesitate to admit some things are wicked”, says Rosemary McLeod (We seem loath to call bullying what it is – deliberate cruelty, November16). She's right, except sometimes it's not a case of hesitation so much as refusal.

The Germans during the holocaust didn’t want to admit that was wicked, either, but as McLeod says, “Whatever you can get away with becomes acceptable”. Yes; for as long as they were in power the Nazis got away with it, just as we’ve got away with abortion. In our society now, it’s acceptable.

“Nobody wants to front for a nasty business like this.” No, indeed.

McLeod talks about “cruelty to the defenceless”. The people who are employed by the state to kill defenceless unborn babies should know they feel pain by at least 20 weeks. If they don’t know, it’s surely their business to find out.

But as McLeod says, “there is always the hope of justice”. Yes. Some day. Please God.

4 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO GET BREAST CANCER (letter to Dom Post, Nov 7)

When Ellen Soulliere (Letters, Nov 7) says the foetus changes its mother’s body irrevocably, “not always for the better”, she's dead right.

 

Because in pregnancy estrogen increases lobules in the breast, then matures them. If pregnancy is interrupted the partially developed breasts are left with much more unstable tissue, which will subsequently be exposed to estrogen, either naturally during her monthly cycle or artificially if she’s taking the pill.

Meta-analyses show this means an abortion leaves a woman four times more likely to develop breast cancer. 

 

The ABC (Abortion Breast Cancer) link is dismissed by some as some as anti-abortion bias  or propaganda.

However, pro-choice Dr Janet Daling of the US National Cancer Institute, who has three sisters with breast cancer and says she’d have loved to find no such ABC link, states that “our research is rock solid and our data is accurate. It’s not a matter of believing, it’s a matter of what is." 

THE SIMPLE PRAYER OF THE HEART

"What is this 'simple prayer'?"

I've been asked this question by someone I love, and I'm answering it here because as a Christian and a Catholic I hope I love not just that someone but everyone, and I want the blessings this prayer brings for all.

St Jean-Pierre de Caussade SJ calls it the 'prayer of the heart'. Fr Caussade, spiritual director of St Jane de Chantal and many others, tells us this prayer causes a person to advance towards God more in one month than any other pious practice in fifteen to twenty years.

It is simple, but it requires discipline and commitment. It's the prayer of meditation which leads to contemplation; it's the contemplative practice taught in the Catholic Church since the time of the Desert Fathers. It is not 'Christian Meditation', a craze that swept the world, a form of centering prayer which leads as Fr Thomas Dubay SM, a modern spiritual director, says, to a dead end. We can discern that by looking for CM's fruits: where are they? Not thronging our seminaries.

How do we practise this 'simple prayer'?  We dedicate at least ten minutes (the bare minimum) of our day to sitting in silence, waiting on God. You will think you haven't got the time, but if you attempt this prayer you'll find God rearranges your life so that you do.

And I'm assuming you're Catholic and free from serious sin. If there's something weighing on your conscience you need to begin by receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Best to set your alarm ten minutes early and do it first thing in the morning. Choose a comfy but upright chair in a quiet place where you'll have no interruptions. Close your eyes and bring Jesus Christ to mind. Picture him in your favorite Gospel episode, perhaps. Say a very short prayer, a mantra you could call it, which you repeat mentally throughout. I use "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner", but just the word "Jesus" is enough. What's important is focusing on our Blessed Lord and his love for you.

If you're like St Teresa of Avila, who claimed to have no imagination, you might need a book to help you get started. The New Testament, or something written by your favorite saint. St Therese of Liseux is very readable and so is St Francis de Sales.

Distractions will happen, and keep on happening. Try to keep your thoughts fixed on Christ, or the Gospel, or some doctrine of the Church, but if you find yourself thinking about what you have to do today, or what you'll eat for breakfast, or what a waste of time this is, gently bring your mind back to the business in hand: the love Christ has for you. You might need to re-open your book for a moment or two, but only for as long as necessary. You're not there to read, you're there to meditate.

That's it - to begin with. If you persevere in doing this prayer, God will eventually take over and do it for you. That's what's called 'infused contemplation' and that's what you're aiming at, because it causes your will to be joined to God's.

I have to set a timer to tell me when my prayer is up, and I finish with a 'Glory Be to the Father' etc.

There it is. It's as simple as that. Nothing, nothing, will do you more good and bring you more quickly to Christ.

PREDICTING A GRUESOME RESULT (letter to Dom Post, Nov 2)

The architects of the 1977 abortion legislation were hardly “conservative” (Editorial, November 1) – they considered themselves brave liberals - but their legacy of 500,000 abortions should certainly horrify them.

 

Jacinda Ardern may not want abortions up to birth, but she should look at Victoria, where decriminalisation of abortion has had exactly that gruesome result, and I confidently predict that to “put the decision where it should be, with the woman herself” will mean an increase in deaths by abortion – not of the woman of course, but of her child.

 

The Dominion Post says “keeping the 20-week time limit is reasonable”. Really? Now that science shows that the 20-week fetus feels pain, is killing him/her at that age “reasonable”?

 

Our current law is “dishonest” because we are dishonest. We deny the proven fact that an unborn child is a human life. And/or we deny that the right to life is inviolable. And we subjectively value the woman’s “right to choose” as greater than her child’s right to life.

 

Yes, "democracy should be robust enough to face the truth". But that means its individual members should be robust enough to face the truth. And obviously, we are not.