"Just as justice requires us to protect all unborn children, so too does it require us to protect access to life-affirming medical treatment for pregnant women facing grave medical complications. This is part of the pro-life ideal, not an exception to it. While children at all stages of development ought to enjoy the law's protections, political realities may make it impossible to achieve this fully and immediately in many jurisdictions. When that is so, enacting the most pro-life law realistically possible is justified.
Date posted: 2022-09-25
If a man can assert that he is a woman, then women lose their hard-won privileges.
Date posted: 2017-06-21
Mother Teresa of Calcutta submitted an amicus brief, filed by her counsel Robert P. George, pleading with the United States Supreme Court to reverse its decision in Roe v. Wade.
Date posted: 2016-10-13
A compilation of surveys on why abortions are performed has shown that about one-third of 1% of abortions are done to preserve the mother's mental or physical health and about the same number are done for rape, incest and birth defects. The total proportion of abortions done in the United States for social or convenience reasons, including for "psychological stress" or out of "financial concerns," is 99.3%.
Date posted: 2013-01-31
I was horrified to read the recent articles 'Care? No, this is a pathway to killing people that doctors deem worthless' and '3000 doctors putting patients on death lists that single them out to be allowed to die' published in the Daily Mail. As a Specialist Registrar training in Elderly Medicine and a terminally ill cancer patient myself I have strong views on these issues both personally and professionally.
Date posted: 2013-01-02
I believe a life is a life, no matter what state or condition a person is in. The people around them, whether that be family, friends, carers or medical staff, should remain positive and always remind the ill person that no matter what they may think, there is always something to live for.
Date posted: 2013-01-02
Two days after he regained consciousness following a stroke, Richard Marsh did not want to die as doctors asked his wife, Lili, if they should turn off his life support machine. He could listen to every word but not tell them that he was still conscious.
Date posted: 2013-01-02
The media can focus on the negatives of disability by focusing on those who wish to end their lives. These good news stories have previously drawn attention to the fact that most people with 'locked-in syndrome' do not wish to die.
Date posted: 2013-01-02
The Readings for this Sunday provide the homilist with an ideal opportunity to teach Christian doctrine concerning marriage and children. The opportunity is timely, too, as one of our political parties has taken an official stand supporting "same-sex marriage," an arrangement that is not intrinsically related to the birth and rearing of children, does not provide the same benefit to society as true marriage, and can never be as optimal for the well-being of children as to be raised by their own biological father and mother. In the midst of the confusion about the very nature of marriage and its purpose, these Readings shed the light of God's revelation on how we should live this most intimate aspect of our lives.
Date posted: 2012-10-03
Since its beginnings in the 19th Century and especially since its exponential growth after World War II, the global population control movement has inflicted documented human rights abuses on millions of women worldwide. During the overpopulation hysteria of the 1960s and 1970s and into the 1980s, nations from Mexico to India implemented coercive population control policies that forcibly sterilized millions of women, forced millions more to have abortions, and also forcibly sterilized millions of men.
Date posted: 2011-06-10
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is in the midst of a debate about human cloning and embryo research. As the Roman Catholic Bishops of this state we affirm that a deeply rooted respect for human life should always guide our public policy. We should not stray, even for the most noble of reasons, from the commitment to protect every human being. If the means are wrong, then the ends cannot justify them. Human life is sacred; presuming this truth at every level of our society is a basic moral obligation.
Date posted: 2010-04-10
Medical science today holds out the promise of cures to diseases and medical advances far beyond anything imagined, even a generation ago. Much of what we hear, particularly in media accounts of this type of "medical miracle," has to do with a remarkable technology called stem cell research. This new medical research industry currently treats numerous illnesses and injuries and offers hope for more cures using adult stem cells.
Date posted: 2010-03-18
There is a great deal of confusion in our society about stem-cell research. An important distinction must be made about embryonic stem-cell research that kills innocent human life and adult stem-cell research that doesn't.
Date posted: 2010-01-19
What is a stem cell? Stem cells are primitive human cells that, when they divide, can form a variety of more specialized cells. For example, just one type of stem cell in our bone marrow works to replace all the different types of blood cells (white, red, etc.) when we need them.
Date posted: 2009-12-25
40 years ago last week (July 25), Pope Paul VI issued the famous encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life). This encyclical "dropped like a bomb" on a world that was fully expecting the Catholic Church to change its teaching on birth control.Yet 40 years later the predictions that Paul VI made have clearly come to light. Here we provide some excellent resources for further study and review:
Date posted: 2008-08-02
Crosses are the instruments by which horrendous pain and ultimately death are inflicted on one member of the human species by other members. There is nothing holy or salvific or worthwhile in being executed by crucifixion. It is the total, absolute, final defeat of the person. It is evil increasing itself in the human situation under the deception that it is being decreased by destroying the supposed evil one. Therefore, without Jesus, the cross is a symbol of the brutal, the ugly, the murderous, the satanic in human life. Without Jesus it is a paradigmatic symbol of pain, powerlessness, defeat and death in the human psyche.
Date posted: 2006-01-28
A British-based Filipina mother who found out she had cancer after becoming pregnant sacrificed her life for her unborn baby by refusing an abortion and chemotherapy, a British newspaper said Friday.
Date posted: 2005-12-15
Sarah is a blessing, a joy, and a gift from God in our lives. Sarah is happy almost all the time. She never feels sorry for herself. She has taught me more about faith, courage, hope, purpose, and priorities than any talking, walking person whose path has ever crossed mine. To say it's been easy would be a lie. To say that there is no bad days would be a lie. It is not all milk and honey and peaches and cream every day. There is a lot of work to do. There is a lot of worry to fight off. But nothing I have ever done in my life has ever made me feel so useful or given me so much meaning as taking care of my totally dependent daughter.
Date posted: 2005-11-13
Each human being, in fact, from his conception is a unity of body and soul, and possesses in himself the vital principle that will lead him to develop his potentialities, which are not only of a biological character but are also anthropological.
Date posted: 2005-09-13
The First International Congress of the Histopathology of the Nervous System took place in Rome in 1952. The ethical questions to which the clinical experimentation of those years gave rise were a cause of grave concern to many doctors, to the point that the organizers asked the Pope to make a pronouncement on the moral limits of biomedical research.
Date posted: 2005-09-13
The life of older people helps to cast light on the scale of human values; to reveal the continuity of the generations and wonderfully to demonstrate the interdependence of the People of God.
Date posted: 2005-06-06
The following homily was given by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde at the Mass for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time on Jan. 23 at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington.
Date posted: 2005-01-29
I often tell people that Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the pre-text for the context. Marital chastity is the context we are aiming for, but many will only get there through the practice of NFP. I believe that one reason why many couples are not familiar with "what'' NFP is, "why" use it, and "how" to use it, is that NFP is a foreign phrase in their lives. Therefore, it is always a good thing to find more and better ways to get the NFP message out to the public in many and varied ways.
Date posted: 2004-07-05
Modern men and women may not be moved by long-standing Church teachings or the natural law, but an appeal to their experience and ways to improve their lives will always have an impact.
Date posted: 2004-07-05
This is a conversion story. My wife and I are converts from an offshoot of Catholic Christianity called Fuddledom. NFP surely did not sound like the path for us. In addition, "What right does the Church have to tell us how to run our sex life?"
Date posted: 2004-07-05
There is a desperate need of an apologetics of NFP in our culture and in the Church. We must develop an effective way for faithful Catholics to evangelize and catechize on the truth and beauty of human sexuality.
Date posted: 2004-07-05
When we realize that fewer than 5% of Catholic couples are practicing NFP and that the rates of sterilization, abortion, and contraception are the same among Catholics as the general population, practices the Catechism of the Catholic Church describe as "intrinsically evil," a lot of work needs to be done.
Date posted: 2004-07-05
The ban on this procedure became federal law in the United States last November. Immediately Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits in three federal courts claiming the ban takes away a fundamental constitutional right. Abortion doctors have taken the witness stand to describe how they abort children in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. Below some extracts from their testimony.
Date posted: 2004-06-04
For those interested, here is a letter and a list of the "Catholic" Members of the US Congress who signed the letter to Cardinal McCarrick letting him know that they think it would "be counter-productive and bring great harm to the Church" if the Catholic hierarchy would withhold Holy Communion from Pro-Abortion Catholic Politicians.
Date posted: 2004-06-04
One day all of us will have to stand before the judgment seat of God. Our God will not be interested if we were a Republican, an independent, or a Democrat. He will not even be interested in what occupation we had in life. What He will be most interested in is our faithfulness to Him.
Date posted: 2004-05-13
If Jesus were to testify up on Beacon Hill before our legislators about the meaning of marriage, I think he could use the very same words that he used in St. Matthew's Gospel. Listen to him with fresh ears: "Have you not read that in the beginning God 'made them male and female,' and said, 'for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
Date posted: 2004-01-25
The bottom line of this distinction is precisely what radically separates these sorts of decisions from the Siren song of euthanasia: a decision to forego extraordinary means rests on a recognition that the means of preserving life or restoring health are being foregone because they are no longer beneficial, are no longer useful or are too burdensome. It is not a decision that the life of the patient is no longer one worthy of being lived.
Date posted: 2003-06-08
Modern medical technology seems to confront us with many questions not faced even a decade ago. Corresponding changes in medical practice have benefited many, but have also prompted fears by some that they will be aggressively treated against their will or denied the kind of care that is their due as human persons with inherent dignity. Current debates about life-sustaining treatment suggest that our society's moral reflection is having difficulty keeping pace with its technological progress.
Date posted: 2003-04-15
African leaders' efforts throughout 2002 demonstrated a commitment to peace and stability but sent ambiguous messages as to the primacy of human rights.
Date posted: 2003-01-27
Roe v. Wade cannot stand as the law of this great nation, a nation founded on the self-evident truth that all people are created with an inalienable right to life. We are committed, no matter how long it may take, no matter the sacrifices required, to bringing about a reversal of this tragic Supreme Court decision. We will speak out on behalf of the sanctity of each and every human life wherever it is threatened, from conception to natural death. Roe v. Wade must be reversed.
Date posted: 2003-01-26
It's a mess here. Babies. Children. Old people. There are thousands of them. There's no dignity inside this (NFA) warehouse. My heart begins to cry again.
Date posted: 2003-01-16
BABI is the incredibly facetious acronym for blastomere analysis before implantation, the latest and most lethal prenatal diagnosis package for eugenic ends. The blastomere is the structure of cells resulting from the very earliest division of a fertilized egg or zygote.
Date posted: 2002-11-24
For some time now the Archdiocese has been supporting an apostolate that ministers to men and women who find themselves attracted to persons of the same sex. COURAGE is a spiritual support group for Catholic men and women who wish to live chaste lives in accordance with the Churchs teaching on homosexuality. Their goals include: living chaste lives in accordance with Church teaching; dedication to Christ through service of others; spiritual direction; frequent attendance at Mass; frequent reception of the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist; support of others who deal with issues of same-sex attraction through prayer and discussion and periodic meetings.
Date posted: 2002-11-23
This paper is neither an official statement of the Committee on Marriage and Family nor of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It does not offer formal recommendations for action. It is intended as a resource paper, offering a compilation of resources and a reflection of the present "state of the question" regarding certain issues of cohabitation.
Date posted: 2002-11-02
To have this abundant life, we must constantly examine our current situation with truth and humility. If there is behavior which is not in conformance with His commandments, we can be sure that such behavior will, to at least some degree, choke out abundant life.
Date posted: 2002-10-19
A Theologians' Brief On the place of the human embryo within the Christian tradition; the theological principles for evaluating its moral status.
Date posted: 2002-10-08
What, then, are our duties as patients, or potential patients, with regard to the preservation of life? What are the corresponding duties of doctors and other health professionals? Answers to these questions are often phrased in terms of a contrast between what are called 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' means or measures of prolonging life.
Date posted: 2002-10-07