It's all about the priest...

As I was driving home, I was listening to PM on radio 4. After a rather dreadful piece on vicars learning to tell jokes and use humour in their sermons, there was another item which really caught my attention. It was an interview with a Catholic, whose name I didn't catch, who had decided to go to Mass every day in Lent, at a different Church.

His conclusion, from having attended 46 Masses said by 46 different priests on 46 successive days was: 'It's all about the priest...'

Some priests, he found, really brought the Mass alive for him, by the sermons they preached, or the care with which they said the Mass, or (and this was particularly potent for him) saying 'thank you for coming' at the end.

Just think about that: 'It's all about the priest...'

For me, that did seem a sad reflection on our modern liturgy; a fruit in part of the changes to the Mass following the Second Vatican Council, and not least in the orienting of the priest to face the people; but also a fruit of a poor understanding of the Mass by priest and people alike.

One of the things I love about the traditional Latin Mass is that the person of the priest is almost an irrelevance. We are looking through him to Christ. 'It's all about Christ offering the Sacrifice to the Father.' It is true that some manage to say the New Mass in that way - not least our Pope Emeritus (about whose wise liturgical praxis I have blogged here, in passing); but it is also true that a priest who faces East simply doesn't have the temptation (or feel the necessity) of making the Mass all about him.

ACTA on the Today prgoramme

On Radio 4's Today programme this morning (here around 1:50 in) there was a discussion of the recent survey of opinions by the bishops.  Mons. Marcus Stock was on first, to explain why the findings are not being published at this stage. To be honest, I don't think that his explanation was as clear as it could have been.  But radio interviews are not easy.  However, I think he could have been better briefed and better prepared with regard to his key messages and the tack the interviewer was likely to take.

But what followed was fascinating. Jean Riordan, of ACTA was interviewed.  She wants a Listening Church; one in which the laity are more enabled to have more input around 'matters to do with sexuality and family life'.  The Church would benefit from openness to 'thoughts and theories about how teachings can be modified and err or reassessed in the light of modern psychology and the needs of the world now.'

The openness for which Pope Francis is calling could be helped if groups like ACTA had a more prominent role in informing the discussion.

She explained: 'We are not a pressure group, we are not a dissident group. We're not actually disputing the... err... much of Church teaching. What we're saying is that Church teaching should be formed by consulting.'

In my unkind way I enjoyed the fact that she stumbled between what (it seemed to me) she meant and what she thought it politic to say.  So we had the stumble after 'how teachings can be modified' and again we had: 'We're not actually disputing the... err... much of Church teaching.'

I thought she was trying strike a rather uneasy balance between the fact that ACTA really wants to modify Church teaching, and does dispute much of it, and the tendentious claim that they have to make for political purposes that 'we are not a dissident group.'

But her last line was a giveaway (it often happens thus under pressure: once the end is in sight, or the tricky question evaded, we relax a shade and the mask slips): 'What we're saying is that Church teaching should be formed by consulting.' 

That strikes me as being a long way from any Catholic understanding of how Church teaching is received from Christ and the Apostles, and handed on by the Church as a treasure of inestimable worth.

I have blogged before about ACTA (and Mons. Stock, come to that), and opined that they are pretty irrelevant.  But they do seem to be in the ascendant at present, so perhaps I dismissed them too easily.

However, one thing is clear: whatever their protestations to the contrary, they are, by their own account, a dissident group.

The Pope's Astronomer

I listened to a fascinating interview with the Pope's Astronomer this morning, on the Sunday programme on Radio 4.

Ed Stourton did his best, of course (Galileo, yawn, yawn...) but was no match for the Jesuit he was interviewing.

When challenged on why the Pope needed an astronomer, he addressed the larger question of why anyone needs an astronomer.

He answered this by telling of his own crisis of conscience on the issue: how as a young astronomer, he wondered how he could justify such an occupation when there are people starving in the world.

So he quit, and joined the Peace Corps.  He went to Africa, and in a spirit of service, he asked the villagers, as they got to know him, what he could do for them.

They asked him to build them a telescope. Then they looked through it, at the stars, the rings and moons about other planets in the universe, and were both delighted and awestruck.

The point he was making was that there is something profoundly important to us as human beings to expand our knowledge and understanding.

Astronomy is a worthy occupation; as is any role in the sciences (or elsewhere of course) that expands human knowledge in ways that in keeping with the dignity of man, and the truth.

He also addressed the false dichotomy between science and faith very eloquently: once the programme is available on iPlayer, I commend it to you.

UPDATE

The interview is here http://ow.ly/oSxbr  at 5 min 20 secs (h/t @Londiniensis on Twitter)

Nuclear damage

The details of the murder of Daniel Pelka have been dreadful beyond description.

Our first response must be one of prayer: for the repose of his soul, of course, but also for the pardon and healing of his murderers.

Beyond that, however, there is always talk of the lessons to be learned.  Yet again, the 'agencies' involved will be castigated for their failures, and perhaps some improvements will be made.

But it seems to me that there is a potential blind spot in the public examination of this and other cases.  I heard on the Today Programme, this morning, for example, the comment that he had been killed by his parents.

That is not true.

As is clear from the more detailed reports, he was killed by his mother, and a man who was not his father who was living with his mother at the time.

Whilst that has been noted in passing, it is not the subject of any comment.  I find that worrying, as I think we should look at such data.  And this is by no means the first case featuring such non-nuclear family relationships.

But the media do not want to do so. Co-habitees are given a free ride.  To see what I mean, imagine if this were the second or third case where the murdering male was a member of the EDL or the BNP or had some other identity of which the media disapproves.  It would certainly not simply be mentioned in passing. Or imagine if it was the second or third time a home-schooling traditional Catholic was guilty, come to that...

But because our societal norm (or at least the one desired by the ever-wonderful BBC and most journalists) is one in which the myth that consensual sexual behaviour, temporary relationships and so on, are healthy and have no adverse consequences, these questions will never be asked:

• Is there a disproportionate frequency of abuse and murder of women and children by men living with women who have children by previous relationships?
• If so, is there a causative link between such patterns of relationship and abuse, or is it merely a co-factor of other determinants (eg chaotic life style, educational levels, deprivation, poverty)?

I don't know the definitive answer to these questions, though I have a strong intuition about them...  But what is scary is that they are not even being asked.

Pathetic Propaganda

Yesterday I happened to be driving in the afternoon, and caught the Radio 4 Afternoon Play.

You can listen to it here.

This is the BBC's synopsis:

The Guest of St Peter's

Not since the Middle Ages have two Popes been alive at the same time. One reason why no modern Pope until Benedict has ever resigned is the danger that a living ex-Pope would become an alternative locus of power and influence within the Vatican.

The Guest of St Peter's imagines just such a scenario.

Thomas Perret is supposed to be dead. Two years ago he resigned as Pope Paul VII, citing old age and illness that made him incapable of carrying out his duties. He has lived ever since in almost total isolation in a small monastery within the grounds of the Vatican City. It was widely assumed that Perret wouldn't last long, but he shows no signs of dying any time soon.

Perret's successor, Pope Leo XIV, has a big problem. A hardline conservative, he has excommunicated a group of liberal American Catholic priests who were offering contraception advice to their parishioners. The Americans have defied him, and have rapidly attracted support from progressive Catholics all over the western world. Leo's authoritarian stance has backfired. Decades of disillusionment with the Vatican's unwillingness to change has boiled over, and Leo now faces the very real risk of a split. At the very least, the absolute authority of the papacy has been gravely undermined. It needs desperately to be shored up.

Cardinal Sastre, the Vatican secretary of state, has a plan. He visits the old Pope in his monastery and appeals to him to make an intervention.

As sides are taken and battle lines drawn, Sastre realises that he has embarked in a dangerous course. The Vatican, after all, is a house of cards, and his actions are in danger of bringing the whole thing crashing down...
--

Apart from the obvious bias and silliness: 'Decades of disillusionment with the Vatican's unwillingness to change has boiled over,' the play was extremely badly written. None of the characters sounded like senior prelates.  The heroine was (of course) a virtuous lesbian journalist, the centre of moral good in the play.  

Even were the Church run according to the crude notions of power assumed by the playwright, they would be expressed in spiritual terms, not in the gauche language of this drama.

It seems to me quite telling that the BBC should think this worthy of broadcasting; the plot, I suppose one could argue, was worthwhile and topical, but the treatment was ill-informed and unconvincing. The characterisation was full of prejudice and lacked any subtlety or sophistication, still less spirituality.  Given that Radio 4's drama is normally of a high standard, this was particularly disappointing.

Essentially this was propaganda, urging the Vatican and orthodox Catholics to get with the plot, and change practice on celibacy and doctrine on contraception and  homosexuality (though nobody in the play seemed to understand the difference between discipline and doctrine), so as to stay in touch with real Catholics in the real world.

Pathetic.

Evil at work...

I know a few journalists.  I have done various courses on working with the media.  One of the things I have learned is that we now live in a 24/7 news world, in which there is a desperate need for news stories, all the time.

All of which makes it strange when a newsworthy story is largely ignored.

Consider these elements:

• multiple murder charges 
• medical malpractice
• exploitation of poor ethnic minority women
• macabre storage of body parts
• treating white patients better than black ones
• local political and medical authorities turning a blind eye..

and the list goes on.

Yet the trial of Kermit Gosnell has received very little coverage.

The BBC reported that he was charged 2 years ago, but has not covered anything since the trial started. Likewise, the only national news organisation in the UK that seems to have covered it at all is the Daily Mail.  The same pattern holds true in the American media.  Apparently, it is deemed to be a local story; which is odd, really, when the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in Ireland was regarded as very newsworthy indeed by the same media.

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.

So much for the media.

But the sheer barbarism of Gosnell is worthy of note. Not only did he break several laws, and show scant regard for the women he was treating; he also deliberately and regularly delivered live babies and cut their spinal cords.  He also kept their corpses, or parts of them, all around his facility.

This kind of barbarity is more than the greed of a man making millions from others' tragedies.  It is diabolical.  

I believe that the same dynamic is present here as was manifest in the Philpott case: there comes a time when one is so steeped in evil, by repetition and hardening of heart, that one becomes a tool of a will other than one's own.  The Devil, when he gains power, revels in human sacrifice.

So we must pray: for the mothers, for the babies, for the staff, and for the appalling Kermit Gosnell.  For Christ thought he was worthy of saving, and died on the Cross to offer him the chance of salvation.  Let nothing diminish our hatred for his evil deeds, and for the malevolvent will of Satan that inspired them; but let us remember not to hate Gosnell, but to hope for his repentance and ultimate salvation.

Humphry's synonym

Introducing an interview with Cardinal Cormac Murphey O'Conner, John Humphrys set the scene by a lurid and exaggerated account of the turmoil in which the Church finds itself at present.

It is quite true that there have been scandals, but his rhetoric was overblown for a broadcasting institution that prides itself on balance.  In particular, his claim that 'the words paedophile and priest have become almost synonymous,' was gratuitously offensive.

It is a grave slur on the vast majority of Catholic priests, both in this country and throughout the world.

Clearly even one priest committing a sin of that nature is calamitous; and there is no doubt that there have been many.

However, they still represent only a very small number of priests; and as an occupational group, Catholic priests are statistically much less likely to be abusers than, say, teachers.  Yet one cannot imagine Humphrys having the temerity to say that  'the words paedophile and teacher have become almost synonymous.'

We need to keep this in mind; on the one hand we should pray and do penance for the reality of sin within the Church (about which I have blogged previously) but on the other, we should be ready to resist the media's gross mischaracterisation of the Church and the vast majority of our priests.

Pushing the Boundaries

The BBC has announced a witty new comedy series, finding the hilarity in euthanasia (or assisted suicide as they euphemistically call it).

Eccles and Blondpidge have said most of what has to be said on this topic.

I would just add that the Greeks knew a thing or two: they saw drama as sacred; not something for everyday, but something of profundity serving a noble purpose.

The need of the modern 24/7 entertainment media to titillate ever more (due to the law of diminishing returns) will inevitably mean that 'edgy' comedy has to 'push the boundaries' further and further back. To the extent that very soon what Eccles prophesies (and worse) will indeed come to pass.

And of course, the BBC has the additional duty of softening us up, as a society, for change in the desired direction.

Succumbing to temptation

OK, my friend the Part Time Pilgrim has tempted me, and I have fallen.  I should be doing something else, but cannot resist the temptation to comment on the BBC’s reporting of the Scottish SSM decision, here and here.

For a piece of classic BBC objective reporting, it deserves a special honour.

Note, for example, in both cases, the wording:  become the first part of the UK to introduce gay marriage.  Clearly, that is simply a statement of fact, carrying no implication that the rest of the UK will or should follow suit.  Clearly.  No assumptions, still less overtones of approval, built into that one.

Read on: The announcement was made in the wake of a government consultation which produced a record 77,508 responses. But the BBC doesn’t mention what those responses said.  Could it be because they oppose the proposals, and that is not the approved line?

In the reactions piece, we find that the vast majority of comments quoted are pro the change - strangely not remotely reflecting the proportions of the views of Scots themselves when consulted (2:1 against).  No agenda there, then, is there?...

And as the Part Time Pilgrim added: 'I also note that "others" are in favour of changing the law, but only the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland are against.'

That strange subterranean vibration is Lord Reith spinning in his grave.

Oh, I forgot...

As my regular readers are both well aware, I am a huge fan of the BBC, bastion of unbiased and objective reporting.

One of the things I often notice with amusement is the way in which their estimates of crowd sizes can give clues as to their editorial objectivity.

Pro-Life marches are always remarkably insignificant, and normally there is a comment about US violence somewhere in the blurb, too; whereas pro-abortion demos are large and invariably peaceful.

A while back, during the Jubilee celebrations, I saw this on the BBC news www site, which seemed to sum up the ability of BBC subs to estimate crowd sizes...

The caption reads: Crowds, more than 10-deep in places, struggled to get a clear view of the proceedings.


Is that how you would have captioned that picture on that occasion?  If not, what does it tell you about the views of the person who did?

Sir Terry Leahy

There was a fascinating, though brief, interview with Sir Terry Leahy, the recently retired CEO of Tescos, on the Today programme this morning, which you can hear here.

He talks about his poor background in Liverpool, his Irish immigrant parents, and attributes his success in business in part to his Catholic junior school, which got him into the grammar school, and instructed him  in moral absolutes.

'The most damaging tendency of all is our sleepwalking into the quagmire of moral relativism, an obsession with tolerance, a wish to please everyone.'

He makes clear the importance of moral absolutes in the world of business: whatever fun academics may have in denying such concepts, in the world beyond academe, they are essential for any human commerce.

BBC and Porn

The ever-wonderful BBC (Radio 1 Newsbeat site: target audience teens and young adults I think) has a charming interview with a young lady about her life as a porn star.

You will learn that she is excessively well paid, protected from STIs by a rigorous screening programme, and that her parents, once they learned what she was earning, were able to reverse their previous disapproval.

All most edifying, and just what the licence fee should be paying for.

The BBC seems dedicated to normalising many things which as a civilised nation we have habitually deprecated.

H/t @sitsio on Twitter

What’s the problem with Catholic Voices?

When first I heard of the Catholic Voices project, I thought it a great idea.  I was fed up with heterodox people popping up on the BBC allegedly representing the Church - and even the occasional orthodox person they found made me look young (and I was born before Vatican 2).

So training up some young orthodox Catholics in media skills, and helping and encouraging them to present a positive and accurate view of the Church in the public square was a solution to a real problem.

However, recently there has been quite a lot of antagonism between some members of Catholic Voices and others on the Catholic blogosphere.  I think the roots of this go quite far back and have little or nothing to do with some of the Catholic Voice members who have got involved more recently.

I hope, in this post, to shed a little light, from one perspective at least, on some of this mess, in the hope that more light will equate to less (inappropriate) heat.

I think there are several separate but intertwined issues that make the CV project very hard to execute successfully as things stand, including the context, the remit, the history, and issues of competence.

The context, as I see it, is that the Catholic establishment in this country has lost its identity and purpose.  There is a degree of institutionalised dissent (pace The Tablet, CAFOD etc) and a larger degree of ambiguity and poor leadership, such that Catholics are frequently surprised and dismayed to witness bishops and their officials say and allow things that would have been unimaginable in previous generations (pace Soho Masses, ‘Who knows what’s down the road?” etc.)  

In that context, providing a positive and clear voice for Catholicism to the media poses some immediate challenges.  What is CV to do when something emerges from the bishops or their agencies that is ambiguous or frankly dubious?   

That leads us to the remit.  I think for CV to work, they should stick very closely to the areas where there is clear and definitive teaching by the Church: that is areas of Faith and Morals. They should avoid areas where there is scope for prudential judgement and therefore legitimate diversity of opinion between Catholics in good faith.  However, many of our  bishops seem to like to talk definitively about such things (eg Fairtrade) whilst maintaining a studied ambiguity or steadfast silence about issues of Faith or Morals.  When CV start to back the bishops’ positions on prudential matters (whether or not these positions are right) they are inevitably going to alienate some, and position themselves as a mouthpiece for the bishops rather than doing what it says on the tin.

When it comes to history, I was first really alarmed by Catholic Voices when they proclaimed the BBC Programme The Pope’s British Divisions to be ‘superb’ which was an extraordinary verdict, and seemed to me to suggest more complicity with the establishment than Catholic sense, as I blogged here. Many other British Catholics were similarly outraged at the programme.  There have been a number of other occasions on which CV has taken a position that has dismayed some orthodox Catholics.

It is against this background which people judge current CV proclamations - and indeed members: they see CV as having ‘form’ - that is being compromised.

Finally, there are issues of competence.  Recently Damian Thompson wrote a characteristically snide piece on his Telegraph blog, mainly attacking Opus Dei, but including the assertion that Catholic Voices has ‘Opus Dei's fingerprints all over it.’

Catholic Voices then tweeted: Opus Dei has no financial, spiritual, managerial, or indeed any other involvement in CV. Damian Thompson is spreading counterknowledge.

Yet we all know that one of the leading figures in Catholic Voices is Jack Valero.  His Twitter profile says: 'Press Officer for Opus Dei in UK. In 2010 Press Officer for Newman's beatification. Coordinator for Catholic Voices.'  He is not just a press officer as a hired hand, of course: that is not how Opus Dei works: he is a senior member of the organisation.

As PR experts, could CV not see that the tweet was not hugely convincing?  When I suggested that CV had shot itself in the foot with this one, the reply was:

‘Two of the coordinators are members of a parish in Pimlico. Does that mean their parish is involved in CV? Of course not.'

This starts to look like casuistry. Is that really the image to cultivate?  

The Pimlico parallel is so weak as to be ridiculous: if the PP at Pimlico were involved, the parallel would be closer - and the claim of ‘no involvement’ even weaker.  And of course, we know that any numerary member of Opus Dei is bound by the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. When Jack Valero is acting as Coordinator for Catholic Voices, he does not, presumably, leave his obedience to his Opus Dei superiors at the door.  So the claim that he is acting in a purely private capacity is hard for anyone outside Opus Dei to understand, however self-evident it may be to those within Opus Dei...

But my point is not the propriety or otherwise of this, but that, given that context, the CV tweet saying Opus Dei has no financial, spiritual, managerial, or indeed any other involvement in CV was inept.  There is so much else they could usefully have said that would not have made them look either stupid or deliberately misleading.  And the tweet ended with an Ad hominem attack: a poor and unworthy strategy, I think. And that is just one, recent, example of what I see as a very poor record in managing PR.

My hopes are two:

One is that CV finds a way to re-invent itself, and does not fall into the trap which so many parts of the pro-Life movement have fallen into, of keeping people at the top who had  a great idea but are not the best leaders for the long term...

The second is that those young Catholics who have joined CV with the sole intention of sticking up for the Church are not brow-beaten by those who, like me, have grown frustrated with the ineptitude and complicity of some at the top of CV.  If people have a quarrel with Austen or Jack, don’t take it out on anyone else - and don't tar all CV members with the same brush.


Update: further musings here.

BBC's Euthanasia Campaign

As I write the lead story on the BBC's www site is:

'Strong case' for assisted dyingThere is a "strong case" for allowing assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill in England and Wales, a group of experts says.

If one follows through to the article, they do mention that 'Critics say it is biased.'

As it was set up by people with a commitment to Euthanasia, funded by people with a commitment to Euthanasia, and even the BMA recognised it was bogus and refused to give evidence, perhaps the BBC could have recognised the validity of the criticism...

But as so often, despite 'balance' to give the impression of impartiality, the BBC's view comes through loud and clear, just as it did on the Today programme this morning.

Apart from anything else, giving this top story billing lends it an importance and credibility that few other PR stunts could command, as does the unbalanced front page headline quoted above, (for 'experts', they could have had 'pro-euthanasia campaigners' if they had really wanted to remain impartial - and accurate).

Biased, the BBC?...

I notice on the BBC News www frontpage:

The jury in the Stephen Lawrence murder trial retires to consider its verdict against defendants Gary Dobson and David Norris. (my emphasis).

So the BBC clearly knows the correct verdict...

Are 98% of abortions in Britain illegal?

That is the case argued by Dr Peter Sanders

He made the claim on a Radio 4 Today programme interview/debate, and has substantiated on his blog.

It is a long post and well worth reading, but the summary is this:

Summary 
So where does this leave doctors? Let me sum it up:
1.There is no evidence that continuing with an unwanted pregnancy poses any greater risk to a pregnant woman’s mental health than an abortion does and yet 98% of abortions are authorised on these grounds
2.The doctors who are authorising these abortions are not therefore doing so ‘in good faith’
3.These abortions are therefore unlawful under the Abortion Act 1967 and Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and those doctors who are carrying them out are committing a criminal offence 
4.Those doctors who are authorising them are knowingly and wilfully making false statements on legal documents and are thereby committing an offence under the Perjury Act 1911
5.These offences under the Abortion Act and Perjury Act both carry custodial sentences

His blog is generally worth a look, too.  See, for example, his comments on the BBC and Gay issues...

H/t Blondpidge on Twitter.

Organ Donation: another assault on life

I have decided to re-post on the subject of Organ Donation, as it is some years since I last mentioned this important and misunderstood subject, and I have rather more readers now than I did have then...


Until I researched it a bit, I had not realised that for hearts (and certain other vital organs) to be transplanted successfully, they must be taken from a living body, as they deteriorate beyond usefulness on death. And that in order to facilitate that, the medical profession has introduced the notion of ‘brain death’ to legitimise the practice.


This has disturbed many nurses and others, as they cannot believe that the donor is dead when his or her heart is beating, flesh is warm, and (in one case) when he put his arm around the nurse just before they were about to remove his heart.


So what do our medical professionals do? Inject a drug that paralyses the donor - and then proceed.


The parallels with the murderous assaults on the unborn in the womb are extraordinary: the start of life re-defined contrary to the evidence, the injection of tranquilisers or anaesthetics prior to the killing...


A good source of information is the Anscombe Centre (formerly the Linacre Centre). In their article on criteria for death, they comment on the problems with the (relatively) recent notion of 'brain death' as the determining criterion: 


The Anscombe Centre's own view is that `brain death' protocols are insufficient for establishing the death of the body: we have become increasingly convinced by evidence suggesting that integrated bodily activity can continue after `brain death' has been diagnosed. There have been documented cases of `brain dead' patients maintaining bodily functions for months or even years: pregnant women have gone through pregnancy, children have grown up and passed through puberty, etc. 3 Moreover, it is well-known to transplant teams that heartbeating donors move when organs are taken, unless they are paralysed by drugs, and that their blood pressure goes up when the incision is made. It is worth noting that some anaesthetists recommend that the supposed `cadaver' be anaesthetised when his/her organs are retrieved. Most organ donors are unaware that their hearts may be beating when their organs are taken, and that they may be pink, warm, able to heal wounds, fight infections, respond to stimuli, etc.


(Link here, and see also their 'Definition of Death' comments)


In 2008 a government commissioned report, after studying a huge body of evidence, came to the 'wrong' conclusion that the consent of organ donors should be explicit not presumed: however, the political class did not want that answer, and are positioning themselves to ignore it.  The BBC, of course, will be involved in a campaign to soften up public opinion.  


We have another fight on our hands…

IMPORTANT UPDATE: here

Abortion better for you than eating apples, study (almost) concludes...

The ever-wonderful BBC has been trumpeting the news that a new study has shown that abortion has no worse effects on a woman than carrying a pregnancy to term.

Leave aside the effect on the child (death) and the effect on anyone else (siblings, father etc) for a moment.

Let's just examine that claim. Because even the BBC admit in their report: 'The scope of the review excluded reactions such as guilt, shame and regret - although these were considered important - and also assessments of mental state within 90 days of an abortion.'

Although these are important, we will exclude them. Why?

For a comprehensive list of studies reaching rather different conclusions, visit John Smeaton's blog.

Non-directive Abortion Counselling

On this morning's Sunday programme (radio 4 UK) there was an item on moves to require women seeking an abortion to receive counselling from someone other than an abortion provider prior to making the decision to abort their baby.

Needless to say, Marie Stopes were on to say how the fact that they have both a financial and a philosophical interest in abortions in no way meant their counselling was partial... I found this scarcely credible.

There was also a spokesman from Life. She made the point that many women who come to Life for post- abortion counselling tell the same story: they go to someone like Marie Stopes looking for a place to talk, and find that before they know it they are on the abortion treadmill.

However her next point I found more troubling: Life offer non-directive pregnancy counselling.

I have a few problems with this, given that they are an avowedly pro-life organisation:
Could they?
Should they?
And if they do, what does that do to their counsellors?

'Lord, help me win...'

On this morning's 'Sunday' programme, there was an interview with the chaplain to the English Cricket team, about a prayer written for the London Olympics. It was a fairly PC type of prayer, but the interesting part of the interview (to me at least) was when he was asked if athletes should pray to win.

He thought not. He made the reasonable point that they could pray for excellence, and for their competitors to do well (as there is no point beating them if they don't). But he felt that praying for victory was not something anyone with a mature faith should do.

I think I disagree. I think that if it is permissible to compete (and I think it is) then it is legitimate to pray for victory. For are we not to bring all our hopes and desires to our Heavenly Father?

Always remembering, of course, that to make it a Christian prayer, we conclude: 'May Thy will be done.'

The other approach risks alienating people's prayer from their real life and concerns and making it a set of pious platitudes; and likewise alienating people's real hopes and concerns from their spiritual life...