An Inclusive Church?

One of the truths of modern life that seems completely unquestionable is that we should always be (or at the very least, strive to be) inclusive. Especially the Church.

I think this bears examining. 

And especially for the Church.

For nowhere in the Gospel do I hear Our Lord preaching that inclusion is a virtue. And indeed, time and again, we read of him selecting people, and thereby, of course, excluding others.

This struck me particularly as I was reflecting on the Transfiguration. Christ had chosen 72 (to the exclusion of many others, doubtless). He chose 12 men (excluding all women and many other men). And then He chose Peter, James and John to ascend the mountain and witness the Transfiguration.  What did the other apostles make of that? They were a querulous bunch, so I bet they had something to say about it...

And whenever He talks of His return in glory, He talks of separating out: sheep from goats, those who clothed, fed and visited Him from those who did not, and so on.

And yet this drive for inclusion seems to dictate so much that has changed in the Church: the removal of the altar rails, the opening up of the sanctuary to all and sundry, girl altar servers, blessings at the altar steps for those not receiving (when all are blessed at the end of Mass), the Sign of Peace ritual, lay people reading, the bidding prayers, the choir that anyone can join (whether they can hold a tune or not) and which therefore cannot attempt serious music, and now, the reception of communion by those living in a public state of sin.

I think much of this is misguided, though well-intentioned, because it is driven by a secular standard and not by the example or teaching of Our Lord or the traditions of the Church.

Traditionally, Catholics excluded others from their worship (even catechumens had to leave before the Canon of the Mass). We excluded women from the Sanctuary during worship (with the symbolic exception of the Nuptial Mass). And so on...

'But... but... you can't want to exclude people!'

My point is, inclusion and exclusion are a particular frame we put around certain social situations. 

In some cases it may be a relevant frame, but in others it may not be. 

But insofar as I would argue for the exclusion of (say) public sinners from Holy Communion, it is because a higher set of values comes into play: ones that are rooted in the Gospel - values such as charity, and truth.

Brain Science

I have been watching David Eagleton's series on The Brain on the BBC iPlayer with great interest. I was particularly struck by the plasticity of the brain: how we actually shape and develop our brain by the way in which we use it.

The study of brains of professed religious, who had often lived long and disciplined lives, revealed that many of their brains showed that they had developed Alzheimer's Disease: yet in life they had shown none of the symptoms of Alzheimer's.  

The effect of learning any particular discipline, whether music, free climbing or cup-stacking was extraordinary, in terms of how the brain develops as a result of repeated training, in order for the learned activity to be entirely natural, and to some extent effortless.

That underpins the classical conceptions of the virtues, of course: the habit of behaving in a particular way, which is developed by repeated as-if behaviour. That is, if I wish to develop the virtue of charity, I should repeatedly think and behave as a charitable person would do; as-if I were a charitable person. If I do that in a sustained and systematic way, I develop my brain so that such behaviour is natural to it.

That is not to down-play the role of grace, of course. It is only by being receptive to grace that I will be able to think and behave as if I were charitable in a sustained and systematic way. But it does underline the importance of a spiritual discipline if we are to grow holy brains. St Benedict knew a thing or two...

It also sheds some light on the whole debate about gender identity and sexual preferences. Whilst there may well be both genetic and environmental factors that incline an individual one way or another, there is no doubt that consistently thinking and behaving in whatever way one does is the way in which one constructs such an identity. And as with the other examples, that will then feel entirely natural.

Which is why I believe, if one accepts the evidence that aberrant sexual identities lead to poor outcomes in terms of health and happiness (and the evidence is certainly there to support that), it is not wise for society to pretend that all gender identities and expressions are equally good; for it may lead more young people than would otherwise do so to adopt, and to make real for themselves, such identities. 

Whereas a strong heteronormative education, and a strong education for chastity, are likely to help more young people to develop a healthy self-understanding and a healthy identity, leading to better outcomes for them and society. The challenge is to do that in a way that does not lead to unjust discrimination against the very small minority for whom the genetic and environmental factors are so strong that they develop aberrant identities despite this support.

It just gets harder...

The Galway branch of the SVP has donated 45,000 euros to an LGBT organisation.

The bishop is, understandably, asking why...

This sad affair raises so many questions; in particular...

What makes the Galway SVP think that this in any way accords with the wishes of the donor, who left it to them to support their work with the poor?

What makes the Galway SVP think that this in any way accords with the wishes of St Vincent de Paul, after whom they are named?

What makes the Galway SVP think that this in any way accords with the wishes of Blessed Frederic Ozanam, who founded the Society?

What makes the SVP think that any Catholic will, ever again, trust them enough to leave them a bequest?

I suspect that the truth is that none of those questions were considered by those responsible for making this shameful decision.

It is a shocking betrayal of trust.  

It is hard enough to find trustworthy charities through whom we can give money to those in genuine need: it just got harder.

More pedestrian reflections on Chartres

And another thing...

The people with whom one walks on a pilgrimage are not chosen; a motley crew, perhaps, and including some with whom one would not usually choose to spend three days of one's life. 

If I am honest, there are one or two people whom I have, in previous years, found quite irritating.  There is one who shouted at me and others one year in an intemperate fashion (dubbed the Sergeant Major in my mind ever since); there is one who has fussy mannerisms which drove me to distraction; there are some who seem preoccupied with self to the exclusion of others: talking through the meditations, not following the simple instructions given by the Chefs de Chapitre... and so on.

Yet this year, many of those whom I have found annoying in previous years had a different effect on me. 

After all, how would I like to be perpetually loathed as a bully because on one hot afternoon, several years ago, I had been a bit short with some people who were out of order? And who is to say that my mannerisms are not irritating to someone else in the chapter? And how often have I thought first of myself and my concerns when struggling to keep going through the heat and tiredness?

And so, some of the very people I once found irritating are those I now look on as old friends and marching companions.

It is all too easy to choose to spend our time with those we find congenial, and to avoid those whom we do not.  But the pilgrimage reminded me that such was not the way of Our Lord, nor is it the way of the Church. And if we persevere with those we find irritating, we may realise that our irritation says more about us than about them, and they, of course, are loveable.

It's not all right for others

There has been some controversy in the press recently about claims that huge numbers of Christians are being martyred every year.  Personally, I am not particularly interested in the numbers: the fact is that many, many Christians suffer for their Faith throughout the world. 

I have just been reading  the ACN booklet Persecuted but Never Forgotten.  It is chilling but essential reading, documenting the persecution of Christians in many countries around the world. 

It concludes with many suggestions for us (what we can and should be doing) and these words of Pope Francis':


I have a question for you, but don’t answer out loud, only in your heart. How many of you pray for Christians who are being persecuted? How many? Everyone respond in your heart. Do I pray for my brother, for my sister who is in difficulty because they confess and defend their faith? It is important to look beyond our own boundaries, to feel that we are one Church, one family in God! 

Well, that's the kids' presents sorted...

I don't normally get organised for Christmas this early in Advent.

Indeed, to my children's' continuing horror, I never buy a tree until the very last minute, as I refuse to have it in the house, still less decorate it, before Christmas Eve (when we put the Carols  and Lessons from Kings on, as an indispensable part of the Christmas Eve ritual).

However, thanks in large part to Ttony, of the excellent Muniment Room blog, I have sorted their presents out already. (Kids, if any of you are reading this, look away now!)

We have decided to give them all a sum of money to invest in Kiva.  For those who are unfamiliar with it (as I was until Ttony pointed it out to me) Kiva is a micro-finance organisation, which supports people in the developing world by giving them small loans to turn their projects from dreams into reality.

I think the kids will enjoy choosing a project to support each, and following its progress, and eventually getting the loan sum back to invest in another project.

I also think it will help them to learn and remember some important truths.

I foresee this becoming their annual Christmas present: so they have much to thank Ttony for!

Dig deep for the Philippines

Those wanting to give to support people in the Philippines, but wanting to avoid CAFOD and other DEC organisations, due to their various problems (from a Catholic perspective),  do have some other options.  

One is to give directly to Caritas Manila, which you can do via their www site here. 

Another way is via Aid to the Church in Need.  

Sometimes people think that ACN is not an appropriate recipient in these instances, so I encourage you to read what they have to say:

Aid to the Church in Need is giving emergency help for those affected by the typhoon in the Philippines.

We are committed to providing €100,000 which is being channelled through the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. But we desperately need your help as requests for support come in.

Typhoon Haiyan has left more than 673,000 people displaced. The bishops tell us that your help will assist people affected in the areas of greatest need, providing food, clean water, shelter and basic medicine.

Fr. Edwin Gariguez who is coordinating the Bishops’ aid programme told us about people’s pressing needs following the disaster.  

Fr. Edwin said: “Of course the most important needs by the affected communities are food and water. There were reports of looting in the province of Leyte because people are so desperate. There were also reports that the number of dead is increasing.  We are trying to reach areas, which are not mentioned in the media, but we are receiving information from the ground, particularly from parishes from the affected dioceses.

“So many people are crying for help but the magnitude of the calamity is so huge that even the government finds it difficult to reach out all those who are affected by this strong Super-Typhoon.” 

You can donate to ACN here. 

A Modern Problem

Some while ago, I read something that has stuck in my head ever since as a perceptive analysis of one of the problems in the modern Church (and indeed in modern society).

I think, though I am by no means sure, that it was in Fr Bryan Houghton's excellent novel, Mitre and Crook.

Anyhow, the point he was making was that until fairly recently we used to care for people: the poor, the sick, the homeless  (and indeed some still do, of course).  But more recently, we have moved collectively from caring for to caring about. Thus, rather than feed and help the poor, we campaign about poverty. Rather than visiting the sick or imprisoned, we campaign about the NHS or penal reform; and so on.

At one level, that may seem rational: after all, if we can solve poverty, that is better than the poor being reliant on our charity.  Yet it seems problematic to me; not least because it is much easier (for me at least) to care about than to care for.  However, I think it is much better for me to care for.

That is partly because of the difference between the world of ideas, which is clean, intellectual, and in many ways safe, and the world of real people, which is messy, practical and unsettling. Yet it is in the poor, the dispossessed, the hungry, the sick and the imprisoned that we encounter Christ; and it is in going out of our way to be with them that we imitate Him.

In so far as caring about is a displacement activity for caring for, it is leading me away from Christ. And the troubling thing is, how eager I seem to be led away from Him...

More reflections on the Gosnell Case

I said in my post about the horrific Gosnell case, yesterday, that

The only sane conclusion one can draw is that the Savita story was covered because it seemed (as initially reported) to be a useful tool to push for the legalisation of abortions in Ireland.  Whereas the Gosnell story, throwing into sharp relief the truth that abortion kills children, is clearly not welcomed.

I am not sure that is true.  I still think it a probable conclusion, but it it not 'the only sane' one. I am always wary of absolute statements, because I believe in absolutes. I try to avoid making them casually, but yesterday I was clearly so outraged that I was inattentive.

It may be that some media are not reporting the story because it is so appalling, and they do not wish to cause distress to women who have had abortions, particularly late ones.  That would be a more noble motive.

However, another possible conclusion is that the media are working out their strategy to spin this story in a way that furthers their pro-abortion stance.

Even if that was not the initial reason for the (consipracy of?) silence, I think we should ready ourselves for that.

For the abortion issue is a war indeed: a spiritual war, masterminded by a diabolic intelligence, whether those engaged in it are aware of that fact or not.  And in any war, it is always prudent to consider what the enemy's strategy is likely to be and to prepare for that.

So if I were the Enemy, I would be planning how to use this to my advantage.  And I think my strategy would be to use the outrage that the Gosnell case will provoke as the details become more widely known, to press for wider availability of, and possibly a constitutional right to, earlier abortions.  That is, to use it as a counter-attack against the gains that the pro-life movement has started to make in the US.

Therefore I predict that over the coming weeks, we will see numerous articles appearing, arguing that Gosnell's attrocities arose not because abortion is an appalling business, but because the poor women who resorted to him were failed by a system that didn't make early abortions more easily available.  Gosnell will be portrayed as the very thing that abortion rights are designed to defend against; a seedy backstreet operator, rather than, as we see him, the natural development of the abortion industry.

What we need to do is help to use this case to awaken the public's awareness that what  Gosnell was doing is precisely what all abortionists do: killing vulnerable humans at a very young age. If this becomes about the awfulness of late abortions, we have lost this opportunity.  We must work to prevent that.

But that will be very hard. 

One of the greatest difficulties the pro-life movement faces is the fact that so many people have a vested psychological interest in abortion being, at some level, not evil.  So many women have had abortions, so many men have been party to the decision, so many parents and siblings have supported or condoned it, so many medical staff have gone along with them, and so on.  In 1967, when David Steel's bill was passed into law in the UK, it was just about possible to believe that a foetus was not really a human being.  Every advance in knowledge and technology since then has made that belief harder, to any balanced observer; yet many still hold on to it - they need to hold on to it.

These people (women, partners, family, medics...)  know that they are not murderers or accomplices to murder, as that was never their intention.  Therefore when pro-life people point out that abortion is murder, we provoke a defensive psychological response of denial.  Likewise, when we point out that what Gosnell was doing was just the same as what they were involved with, they will respond in the same way.

There are a few, brave, souls who have overcome that response: people who have repented of having abortions, and others who have repented of performing them.

The challenge we face is to find ways to help more people to reach that position. It is almost certainly the case that confronting them with the truth about abortion is part of that process, though we may need to be sensitive about how and when to do that; but I am pretty sure that abusing them or referring to them as 'murderers' is not.  But until we can work out a strategy to address this issue (as well, of course, as reducing the reasons that drive women to seek abortions) , we are a long way from victory in the war against this evil

The Widow's Mite

There has been some noise about the Holy Father, and the Church generally, selling off all its riches and giving the money raised to the poor. (See William Oddie's article here for context).

I have a few reflections on this.

One is this: when my mother died, we gave her Parish Church a Ciborium (having consulted, and been told that would be useful).  The PP assured us that he would remember her at the Masses at which it was used.  If he sells it off and gives the money to the poor, we, who gave it to the Church on trust, would feel (and rightly I think) aggrieved.  Much of the Church's rich heritage has been acquired in the same way.  It is not accumulated wealth that can be disposed of at will, but rather the gifts of the faithful, given to the Church for the greater glory of God.

A second is this: when Our Lord commended the widow for giving her last mite, she was not giving it to the poor, but to the temple funds: the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our hearts.  Our Lord endorses that this includes giving our money for the worship of God.  And we remember Judas' outrage at the 'waste' of rich ointment...

Curiously, those who are so keen to do this are rather less keen when other preferential options for the poor are suggested.  For example, when I suggest that we do without Communion under both kinds for the laity, and give the money saved on altar wine to the poor, that is met with outraged incredulity.

Of course we should give to the poor - and of course the Church does.

Of course we should give more to the poor: but to be inspired to do that, perhaps we need to enrich our faith; and it is just possible that there is a correlation between worthy worship and strength of Faith.

The poor are clearly going to be at the centre of our new Holy Father's pontificate, which is wonderful. However, this will only bear radical fruits if it leads individuals - you and me - to give more; not if it only results in people calling on others ('the Vatican', 'government' etc) to do more. There is no metanoia there.

Further reflections on Hypocrisy

A few disconnected thoughts have been swimming around what passes for a brain in the pater familias at Trovato Towers, in addition to those I posted here.

One is that if someone subsequently discovered to be a hypocrite has been lauding certain virtues or values, it is wholly irrational to disbelieve the virtues or values.  The rational response is to disbelieve the hypocrite, precisely in his claim to live up them.

The second is that, pace Cardinal O'Brien, I am sure that things look very different from his perspective and from those who have denounced him.

Whilst I am quite prepared to believe that they may have experienced his approaches (if such there were) as an abuse of power (inter alia) I am also sure that it will not have seemed like that to him at the time.  Recognising the multiple subjectivities at work in such a situation is important if we are not to leap into judgemental mode, but rather understand with compassion what has gone wrong.

That is not to say that we may not judge particular actions as wrong; indeed we must, for the sake of justice and truth.  But we are commanded not to judge our brothers, and that for the sake of an even higher law, the law of charity.

The very best thing we can do is to pray for all concerned, and the next thing is to look to ourselves and root out all that is not in accord with the high truths of Faith Hope and Charity to which we are called.

For to reform and heal the Church, we need to reform and heal the members of the Church; and the place to start is with ourselves, not with others.

Bernie at the Olympics

Bernie is volunteering at the Olympics this week; not on public duty, but as a cleaner in the Olympic Village.  That is normally paid work, but she has been recruited to a scheme whereby her wages are donated to a charity in Uganda.

She is sleeping in the notorious workers' portakabins - nothing like the hell-holes portrayed by the press, more like youth hostel accommodation: shared, spartan, but fine.  Nonetheless, the news that that was where they were due to stay caused two of her co-volunteers to drop out before even seeing the place.

Two more dropped out after the first morning's work.  It is hard work, endlessly changing the beds, cleaning the rooms, and washing down the bathrooms of the athletes (which are rather more luxurious than her room, as you'd expect).

However, she is having a great time; we receive regular text updates, including that she has cleaned Sir Chris Hoy's room and made his bed; has met a very friendly Madagascan athlete who gave her a Madagascar badge, with which she is delighted, and most dramatically that she pulled the duvet off one bed, only to find a sleeping athlete in it!  Her text  continued: 'Awks! Never been so frightened in my life!'

So I gather she's having a fine time; and as she has her evenings free, is planning to enjoy some of the sights of London, including the Royal Academy summer exhibition.

She is trying to wangle some tickets for at least one Olympic event, so far unsuccessfully, but I'd put money on her getting to something before the week is out.

I'm pleased she's doing it - not least because our kids lead a very privileged life, and I think it is good for them to do some real hard work, and get some clue about how so many people have to work to make a living.  At her age, I used to work as a janitor and kitchen porter etc during my year off and vacations, and have long valued the people I met along the way and the whole experience of manual labour.

And there's also the aspect of having played some part in the London Olympics, as well as supporting a worthwhile charity.

ACN Night of Witness

Aid to the Church in Need have asked me to publicise their Night of Witness, which, of course, I am delighted to do.

It will be held at Westminster Cathedral, on Thursday 17th May.

As they point out, 75% of the cases of religious persecution worldwide are against Christians.


In recent weeks they have received the news that almost the entire Christian population of the Syrian city of Homs (50,000 or more people) has fled violence and persecution engulfing their homeland. 


Other high-profile (though not as high profile as they should be) issues include the current detention, awaiting execution, of Asia Bibi on blasphemy charges in Pakistan; and the similar detention of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani on the same ‘charges’ in Iran.


On a more positive note is the recent suggestion by Cardinal O’Brien that murdered Pakistani politician Shahbaz Bhatti might be made a saint for his heroic witness to the faith. 


Other recent news stories can be read on their news page here.  


Here is the flyer for the Night of Witness

They have set up a  Facebook event page  as well as their own dedicated web-page.


If you can, be there!  If, like me, you can't,  support them with prayers, donations and publicity.

We're getting a reputation at the School...

Breakfast dialogue at the Trovato table today:


Self: Why are you wearing that?
Dominique: It's own clothes day: it's the last day tomorrow, but we have the end of term Service, so it's own clothes today.
Self: What's it in aid of this time?
Dom: Cancer research...
Self: Did you...?
Dom (interrupting): Yes, I went to reception, and they said as long as I gave a pound to some charity, I didn't have to give it to them.
Self: Were they curious why you didn't want to...?
Dom (interrupting): No, they're used to us.


If you don't know why we don't support Cancer Research, look at SPUC's Charities bulletin.  Cancer Research UK is, inter alia, a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities, which campaigned in favour of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, which Cancer Research UK also supports.

False Gods

It seems to me that modern Western societies have made false Gods out of (inter alia):

• Equality
• Autonomy
• Democracy
• Choice
• Tolerance

That is not to say that these are not goods, but that they are not ultimate goods.  When they are elevated to absolute status, they are not only destructive, they are self-destructive.

C S Lewis (of course) identified the problem accurately in First and Second Things: 

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. 

The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication. 

It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens? 

Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made. 

. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.

So if we pursue equality, say, as an ultimate good, we end up not just doing a great deal of harm, but also undermining equality itself.

How does that work?  Well, consider the issue of equality for women: a laudable aim, in many ways.  But when pushed to the extreme, we find that it includes the right of women to kill their unborn children - for being female.  See the comments under Madeleine Teahan’s Guardian Online article for a very stark demonstration of that simple truth.

With very little effort one can see the same principle at work when any of these other secondary goods is elevated to the status of an absolute good.

What we are called to do, of course, is to acknowledge that God is the top of the hierarchy.  These secondary goods (equality and the rest) are often useful indicators of where something has gone wrong; if they are being abused, it is a clue, worthy of investigation.  Even democracy (eg when operated in a corrupted society) is not sovereign.  It is (normally) a safeguard; it is not an absolute good.

Even in terms of a scale of values, these principles are not ultimate.  According to Catholic tradition, we should always start with Faith, Hope and Charity, and then consider Justice, Fortitude, Temperance and Prudence.  Apply those to the abortion debate and, not surprisingly, you get a completely different, and far more humane, set of priorities for both mother and child.

A Catholic Charity

A Catholic Charity worthy of your support is Aid to the Church in Need.

At present they are particularly keen to support people in Nigeria, where Churches are being bombed and up to 35,000 are fleeing the onslaught by Muslim extremists.

They are also supporting the reconstruction of a Convent (and Catholic life) in Sarajevo, following the terrible troubles there.

There are many ways to support them, by donations, Mass offerings or getting more actively involved in their work.

Of course prayer is always both valuable and appreciated, so add them to your prayer intentions.

If you are a Twitter user, you can also follow them @churchinneed.

What's wrong with CV's critics?

In my last, I summarised what I think has gone wrong with the Catholic Voices project.

I think it is also worth looking at the other side of the coin: the way in which some on the Catholic blogosphere have interacted with, and commented on, CV and CV members.

I include myself in that number.

It seems to me that some of us, at least, have been viewing any CV activity, and the activity of anyone associated with it, in a prejudicial light.

For some, that prejudice is partly an occupational issue: for journalists, bad news generally makes better stories than good news: and that applies not only to the likes of Damian Thompson, but also to bloggers who lose sight of their real purpose in pursuit of hits.

On top of that, some have a predisposition to attack anything in which  Opus Dei or any member thereof is involved (let's not rehearse the no involvement argument here...)

Then there are those who feel they have been slighted by CV collectively or by Jack or Austen individually.  Understandably, that risks colouring their perception of CV.

And there are those, and this included me, who had high hopes of CV, but were dumbfounded at some stage (in my case, the view that the BBC's programme The Pope's Divisions was 'superb').

The result of all that is that a small but vociferous number of Catholic bloggers and journalists have been looking critically (and no doubt from the CV point of view with jaundiced eyes) at everything they do.

Positive things are less likely to be commented on, both because they are less newsworthy (no newspaper ever sold with a headline that every plane landed safely at Heathrow yesterday) and also because they do not fit the dominant narrative about CV in these circles.  Anything that can be questioned, is.  And anything that is ambiguous is presented as proof at least of incompetence, if not of collusion with some dodgy agenda.  That's all fairly understandable, if not always wholly edifying.

But there has also, it seems to me, been something more; something that on the receiving end has felt like harrassment and bullying, even if that was not the intention.

To some extent that is to do with style, but there is something more.

So what have I seen?

Bombardment with a series of messages, showing no inclination to listen to the responses, merely to repeat the message with ever increasing force; name-calling ('CVeebies'); leaping to judgement rather than enquiring ('that's heretical' rather than 'can I check what you're getting at here...?'); treating individuals as part of a collective all the time - and tarring them all with the same brush; casuistry and nit-picking to score points; failure to recognise (even when told) that someone is in an emotionally fragile state, and so on; failure to recognise that these are not career bureaucrats, nor theological experts (that's the point!) but rather individuals who wish to serve the Church and give freely of their time and energy to stand up in the public square and take the hits from the enemy (do they really need 'friendly fire' too?).

I am sure that most of this is done with good intentions: in the pursuit of truth.  But when we forget the fundamental inter-relation of Caritas and Veritas, we have lost the plot.

Mea culpa, 
Mea culpa,
Mea maxima culpa.

The Rhetoric of Abortion

I am pretty familiar with the rhetoric of abortion - you know the kind of thing:

A woman’s right to choose

Keep your rosary away from my ovaries

My body - my right to choose

Imposing your morality on me

Every child a wanted child

I’m not pro-abortion but I am pro-choice

However, I encountered a less frequently-heard one the other day, which I thought worthy of comment (I may re-visit some of the others in future posts). The one I want to look at today is that by opposing abortion, I am ‘forcing women to carry a pregnancy to term.’

I suppose I am, yes. In precisely the same way that by preventing my kids from committing suicide, I am forcing them to stay alive - and what’s worse, to die either a violent death, as the result of an accident, by illness, or by old age. How cruel of me!

We need to see beyond the rhetoric and be ready to expose the fallacious thinking that underpins it: in this case that carrying a pregnancy to term is in some sense a bad thing; and that allowing a natural process to take its course - and disallowing a deliberate intervention to change that - is in some way forcing something on someone.

But by the same token, we need to be careful of our rhetoric. We must make our case clearly, robustly and unapologetically, but rhetoric that simply demonises others (‘child murderer’, for example) will neither convince them nor third parties: and is in breach of charity, as it makes an assumption about their knowledge, free will, active intention etc that we are not entitled to make.

ACN Walsingham Pilgrimage

I have just received this from Aid to the Church in Need:

Aid to the Church in Need UK – Annual Walsingham Pilgrimage of Hope – Saturday, 30th April 2010

Please join us as Aid to the Church in Need remembers suffering Christians around the world with our 2011 Pilgrimage to the Roman Catholic National Shrine in Walsingham.

ACN is organising coaches from London Victoria, Bressenden Place, departing at 08:00. Should parishioners wish to join us at Walsingham, travelling independently or, perhaps, organising coaches from their locality they are very welcome to do so.

For those who would like to join us on this Pilgrimage and would like more information a brochure and booking form is downloadable from the ACN website . You could also contact us on 020 8642 8668.