Field Hospital for Meaning, Purpose, and Fulfillment in Human Intimacy and Sexuality

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Pope Francis: Abortion is like hiring a hitman

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There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't want society or public opinion to know, that even they don't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To define one's identity on the basis of our sexuality alone is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you. G.S.

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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best human efforts to make sense of our lives - and of our human sexuality in particular - also including the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium. The Church has been accumulating much valuable wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik

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Pope Francis: Abortion is like hiring a hitman By Courtney Grogan Vatican City, Oct 10, 2018

Pope Francis kisses a child at the general audience on Oct. 10. Credit: Daniel Ibanez.

In his general audience Wednesday, Pope Francis said that abortion “suppresses innocent and helpless life in its blossoming.”

“Is it right to take a human life to solve a problem? It's like hiring a hitman,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 10, in a departure from his prepared remarks.

“Violence and the rejection of life are born from fear,” the pope added.

For this reason, parents who learn that their unborn child will have a disability need “real closeness, true solidarity to face reality; overcoming understandable fears,” he explained.

Pope Francis lamented that parents receiving a difficult prenatal diagnosis often “receive hasty advice to stop the pregnancy.”

It is contradictory to suppress “human life in the womb in the name of safeguarding other rights,” the pope insisted.

“How can an act that suppresses innocent and helpless life in its blossoming be therapeutic, civil, or simply human?”

The pope’s remarks on abortion came during a reflection on the fifth commandment, “Thou shall not kill.” In recent weeks, the pope has dedicated his weekly general audiences to a series of lesson and reflections on the Ten Commandments recorded in the scriptural books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.

“One could say that all the evil done in the world is summarized in this: contempt for life,” Pope Francis told the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

“What leads man to reject life? They are the idols of this world: money, power, success. These are incorrect parameters to evaluate life. The only authentic measure of life is love, the love with which God loves it!”

The positive meaning of the fifth commandment is that “God is a lover of life,” he continued.

“In every sick child, in every weak old man, in every desperate migrant, in every fragile and threatened life, Christ is looking for us, he is looking for our heart, to disclose the joy of love. It is worthwhile to accept every life because every man is worth the blood of Christ. We can not despise what God so loved!” Pope Francis said.

While a sick child or an elderly person who needs assistance can be viewed as a burden, this can actually be “a gift from God,” explained the pope. This vulnerable life can “pull me out of self-centeredness and make me grow in love.”

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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best efforts as human beings to make sense of our lives in general - and of our human sexuality in particular - and to also include the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium; given that the Church has been accumulating the wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7 G.S.

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© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC

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Sunday, September 30, 2018

L'AVORTEMENT PROVOQUÉ ET LA CONTRACEPTION - LES EFFETS / THE EFFECTS OF ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION

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Droit de savoir - Avortement et contraception / Abortion and contraception - Right to Know

LES EFFETS DE L’AVORTEMENT PROVOQUÉ

SANTÉ PHYSIQUE

L’avortement provoqué, par voie chimique ou chirurgicale, est un traumatisme pour le système hormonal, qui lui, est tout orienté vers la grossesse. Or, l’équilibre hormonal est un fondement important de la santé globale. La violence requise pour arracher et démembrer le bébé ne se compare aucunement à un avortement spontané, dans lequel cas le bébé meurt de causes naturelles, et le lien qui unit le bébé au corps de sa mère est alors beaucoup plus faible, pour ne pas dire inexistant. La violence de l’avortement provoqué peut facilement causer lésions, cicatrices, perforations, hémorragies et infections, lesquelles peuvent aller jusqu’ à l’empoisonnement généralisé. Voilà qui peut poser problème pour la fécondité ultérieure, entre autres. Si le fait de mener une grossesse à terme pose problème pour la santé d’une femme, il y aura toujours la possibilité de césarienne. Nul besoin d’enlever la vie à l’enfant pour autant.

SANTÉ PSYCHOLOGIQUE ET RELATIONNELLE

Les milliers de femmes qui ont subi l’avortement provoqué et qui sont inscrites dans les programmes de guérison post-avortement témoignent souvent que l’avortement les a laissées frigides, froides, distantes et agressives, en plus d’être déprimées et même suicidaires, plusieurs tentant en vain de noyer le mal par l’abus de substances de toutes sortes. Leur relation amoureuse n’a pas pu résister à ce syndrome post-traumatique. Elles avaient, pour plusieurs, recouru à l’avortement pour sauver leur relation, mais l’avortement a fini par la détruire, ainsi que leur capacité d’en nouer une nouvelle.

Il peut arriver qu’on ait recours à l’avortement pour tenter de dissimuler une liaison extra-conjugale. Mais les femmes témoignent que le secret, tant de la liaison que de l’avortement, est lourd à porter. Elles se rendent compte que la règle d’or en matière de relations familiales est bel et bien exacte : « Plus il y a de secrets dans une famille, plus celle-ci est dysfonctionnelle. » Un secret, c’est une mauvaise herbe qui ne fait que grandir avec le temps et qui finit toujours par étouffer tant ceux qui le cachent que ceux de qui il est caché. Qu’on le veuille ou non, l’honnêteté sera toujours la meilleure option (« Honesty is the best policy »). Mais sans les secrets, les romans savons ne pourraient pas perdurer, n’est-ce pas ?!

Révéler une aventure, c’est difficile, mais la cacher, ça l’est encore plus. Si on ne se sent pas prêt à accueillir cet enfant comme le sien, alors il y aura toujours l’adoption, ouverte, semi-ouverte ou fermée. Mener une grossesse à terme, c’est difficile, mais porter les séquelles physiques et psychologiques de l’avortement provoqué, ça l’est encore plus. Il est illusoire de penser que de chercher à se déresponsabiliser des conséquences de ses actes puisse mener au bonheur… Il est aussi illusoire de penser que le fait d’aller contre la vie et la nature soit une bonne stratégie de bonheur et de bien-être.

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Saturday, September 8, 2018

Archbishop Lépine: No refuge in the Church for sex assault perpetrators & "BREAKING THE SILENCE" - Claude Ryan Lecture, Newman Centre, McGill University

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BREAKING THE SILENCE ABOUT CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE: PROMOTING SAFER PLACES FOR OUR CHILDREN TO GROW - Claude Ryan Lecture at Newman Centre, McGill University, February 12th, 2015 by Dr. Delphine Collin-Vezina, Director, Centre for Research on Children and Families, Tier II Canada Reserach Chair in Child Welfare, Associate Professor, McGill University

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Archbishop Lépine: No refuge in the Church for sex assault perpetrators – "Under my leadership, the Archdiocese of Montreal ... wish to contribute humbly to the process of justice and healing."

CHRISTIAN LÉPINE, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE Updated: September 8, 2018

No one can remain indifferent to the turmoil experienced by the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of some members of the Catholic clergy during past decades. On this continent and elsewhere, reports related to abuse and cover-ups have multiplied, hurting us all, irrespective of our faith or our belief.

As archbishop, the impact of these scandals weighs heavily upon me, all the more because this abuse was committed mainly by men in positions of moral authority who pledged to live according to the high standards set out in the Gospel. Such a situation arising within the Church understandably undermines the faith of sincere believers and erodes public trust in this institution.

In expressing his shame and pain recently, Pope Francis is showing us the way forward. The Holy Father states that “looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient.” He, therefore, is calling upon the bishops, the priests and all Catholics to make every effort to ensure not only that such incidents never happen again, but also that they are never concealed, by anyone.

Acknowledging that sexual assault is both a grave moral aberration and a crime, we must take decisive action to ensure that sexual aggressors do not use the Church as a refuge where they can operate secretly, thinking they are sheltered from both civil and Church justice.

We must, therefore, put words into action, beginning by accompanying victims, with the utmost care, assisting them both in their personal journey and in approaching law enforcement authorities. But in addition to the pursuit of justice, we must unequivocally send out a clear message that we will never accept that such crimes could be committed and remain concealed.

It is deeply sad to note that, for far too long, the Church hierarchy had failed to prevent sexual abuse and to address and rectify the known abuses quickly and effectively. That is why, more than two decades ago, the Catholic Church of Canada voted to condemn such reprehensible acts and take concrete action. National guidelines for the protection of minors were put in place across the country. And as was announced in a statement Aug. 20 by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, “This fall, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops will launch updated and expanded guidelines promoting the safeguarding of minors and increasing accountability and transparency within Church leadership.”

Throughout Canada, bishops are earnestly dealing with the issue. In Montreal, we had already established a Department for Responsible Pastoral Ministry to ensure a safe, responsible and healthy environment within the archdiocese. This has led us to adopt a strict policy regarding abusive behaviour, whether physical, psychological or sexual.

Under my leadership, the Archdiocese of Montreal is determined to get to the bottom of things in the search for truth, and we renew our commitment to ensure that each and every person who calls upon us is received with compassion and respect, and guided, accordingly, to the appropriate authorities. We wish to contribute humbly to the process of justice and healing.

In this respect, we will abide by the words of Jesus: “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:8)

Christian Lépine is Roman Catholic archbishop of Montreal.

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/archbishop-lepine-no-refuge-in-the-church-for-sex-assault-perpetrators

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Abus sexuels dans l'Église catholique – Lettre ouverte de l'archevêque de Montréal: Une douleur entendue Présence information religieuse 2018-09-10 Québec

L'archevêque de Montréal, Christian Lépine, se prononce sur l'actuelle crise entourant les abus sexuels dans l'Église. (Archives Présence/François Gloutnay)

*Présence publie des documents et des lettres ouvertes en lien avec l'actualité. Voici une lettre que l'archevêque de Montréal, Mgr Christian Lépine, a acheminée au quotidien The Gazette et à lapresse.ca.

Une douleur entendue

Nul ne peut être indifférent à l’épreuve qu’ont traversée les victimes de certains membres du clergé catholique ces dernières décennies. Ici comme ailleurs, des témoignages d’abus se sont multipliés et nous affligent tous, quelle que soit notre foi.

Comme archevêque, j’y vois un scandale d’autant plus grand que les agressions commises l’ont été principalement par des hommes en position d’autorité morale qui se devaient de vivre selon les plus hautes vertus évangéliques. On comprend qu’une telle situation dans l’Église ébranle la foi des croyants sincères et entache la confiance des citoyens envers notre institution.

En exprimant récemment sa honte et sa douleur, le pape François nous trace le chemin à suivre. Le Saint-Père affirme que «considérant le passé, ce que l’on peut faire pour demander pardon et réparation du dommage causé ne sera jamais suffisant». Il invite donc les évêques, les prêtres et l’ensemble des fidèles à tout mettre en œuvre pour que non seulement de telles situations ne se reproduisent plus jamais, mais aussi pour qu’elles ne puissent être dissimulées par qui que ce soit.

Faire la vérité

Partant du fait que les agressions sexuelles sont des fautes morales très graves et des crimes, nous devons jouer un rôle actif pour que les agresseurs ne trouvent pas refuge dans notre Église pour opérer dans le secret et penser s’y mettre à l’abri de la justice ecclésiale et civile.

Il faut donc passer de la parole au geste, en commençant par accompagner avec le plus grand soin une victime, dans son cheminement et ses démarches auprès des autorités policières. Mais au-delà de cette quête de justice, nous soutenons le message clair que nous n’accepterons jamais que de tels crimes soient commis et restent dans l’ombre.

Il est navrant de constater que, trop souvent, la hiérarchie ecclésiale n’a pas su prévenir les agressions et en rectifier rapidement et efficacement les dérives. C’est pourquoi, il y a plus de deux décennies, l’Église canadienne s’est prononcée pour condamner les actes répréhensibles et prendre des mesures concrètes. Des lignes directrices nationales pour la protection des personnes mineures avaient alors été mises en place. «Cet automne, la Conférence des évêques catholiques du Canada lancera une édition mise à jour et enrichie de ces lignes directrices afin de promouvoir la protection des personnes mineures et d’accroître la responsabilisation et la transparence chez les responsables de l’Église.»

Prévenir

Partout au pays, les évêques prennent la question très au sérieux. Ainsi, à Montréal,, nous avons mis sur pied un service diocésain de pastorale responsable visant à assurer un environnement sain et sécuritaire au sein de l’archidiocèse. Cela nous a amenés à nous doter d’une politique stricte en matière de comportements abusifs de nature physique, psychologique ou sexuelle.

Sous ma direction, l’archidiocèse de Montréal veut aller au fond des choses dans la recherche de la vérité et renouvèle son engagement à ce que toute personne qui fait appel à nous soit accueillie avec compassion et respect puis guidée vers les autorités compétentes. Nous souhaitons ainsi contribuer humblement au processus de justice et de guérison.

En cela, nous nous conformerons aux paroles de Jésus : «Car quiconque demande reçoit, celui qui cherche trouve, et l'on ouvre à celui qui frappe» (Matthieu 7, 8).

Mgr Christian Lépine
Archevêque de Montréal

http://presence-info.ca/article/eglises/article/lettre-ouverte/lettre-ouverte-de-l-archeveque-de-montreal-une-douleur-entendue

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Thursday, August 16, 2018

Where is Jesus in the midst of the Church's sex abuse crisis?

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Where is Jesus in the midst of the Church's sex abuse crisis? By Courtney Grogan Washington D.C., Aug 16, 2018

Crucifix. Credit: Lucia Ballester/CNA.

Fr. Thomas Berg is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, a former Legionary of Christ, and professor of moral theology, vice rector, and director of admissions at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, NY. He is author of Hurting in the Church: A Way Forward for Wounded Catholics. He spoke recently with CNA’s Courtney Grogan about the challenges Catholics face amid the Church’s sexual abuse and misconduct scandals. The interview is below, edited for clarity and length.

With everything that has been coming out in the news recently about sexual abuse in the Church, how do you think that your book, “Hurting in the Church: A Way Forward for Wounded Catholics,” could be helpful?

In the wake of the McCarrick scandal and ongoing revelations of priest sexual abuse, a very common reaction is one of betrayal. That's what I have heard a lot of from persons who have reached out to me, especially persons who for years have collaborated with bishops, worked in chanceries, worked for bishops, collaborated in apostolates, have headed-up bishop’s capital campaigns, have been donors and so on. Part of the very common experience is this raw emotional wound of betrayal.

Much of my book speaks directly to that experience. That's where I really hope that persons who are going through that betrayal, profound discouragement, disappointment, the bewilderment of the moral failures of bishops, who either failed to report what they should have reported or did not act on what was reported to them. That is scandalous and that opens up a wound of betrayal really in the whole mystical body. I very much believe that the book can, hopefully, point to where is the good news in this -- Where is the hope in this? Where is Jesus in the midst of this crisis?

Where is Jesus in the midst of this crisis?

Jesus is the healer of wounds, and Jesus does not leave the members of his mystical body without healing when we seek it. We are in the midst of a massive crisis, notwithstanding some resistance to that idea by some of our prelates. And those wounds are opened up. This is where not only can Jesus bring healing, but he can also use that experience of woundedness, whether that is personally or institutionally or spiritually as the body of Christ. He uses those wounds to bring greater good, to bring grace and healing to His Church.

Part of what I do in the book is just to reflect, often with these individuals [victims of abuse] and sometimes in their own words, on this mystery that the Jesus who comes into this experience is Jesus who appeared with his glorious wounds. The wounds were still there. The wounds are mystically important and we can unite our wounds to Jesus and allow him to unite those in a mystical way, in a redemptive way to His redemptive work.

So, where is Jesus in all of this? Jesus is continuing in the midst of our brokenness, in the midst of the utter moral failures of our pastors, in the midst of our own sinfulness and brokenness. The risen Good Shepherd comes with his glorious wounds by which he intends to bring about healing in his Church and to bring about a much greater good and a much more glorious future precisely in and through the tragedies that we are experiencing.

We will also experience this in a much more glorious and beautiful day for the Church in the future, and certainly for the Church when all time has been consummated and we are all, by God's grace, caught up in the glory of the heavenly kingdom.

You discuss in the book how uprooting a betrayal of trust can be and how we really need to be grounded in Christ's love. What are some concrete ways that Catholics can really root themselves in Christ's love and find that grounding in a time when they might feel destabilized in the Church?

First, very practical immediate answer: Eucharistic adoration. No doubt about it. That was essentially my homily when we were talking two weeks ago about the McCarrick thing from the pulpit. It means, as always in crisis, we need to be earnestly and deeply seeking the Lord by frequenting Eucharistic adoration and intensifying one's life of prayer. In my own story, I had to go on retreat. I had to just go take some time to just be by myself to get that down to the solid foundation of what did I stand on. What was the foundation that everything that I believed stood on?

What one can come to in those experiences is that experience of Jesus -- the experience that our risen and glorious Lord still stands present in the midst of our lives. He is there. When we are hurting, we need to do whatever it takes: adoration, retreat, increased prayer, asceticism, solid spiritual reading, all of the things that we can avail ourselves of God's grace to re-experience ourselves as rooted and grounded in His love. God has a very big safety net for us and it is that reality of being truly rooted and grounded in Him and in His love that encompasses us.

It is just that when we are hurting, when we are scandalized, when we are angry, when we are experiencing all of this emotional turbulence, it is just -- it takes time and prayer and I think a lot of coming to silence and coming to quiet to get through that and to realize that our Lord is still there. Our Lord is still holding his hands out to us. Our Lord is still there to embrace us and pick us up and guide us and help us to move forward.

What would you say to the priest who just doesn't know how to address this from the pulpit, who is dealing with his own feelings of hurt and confusion, and maybe is on the fence about whether he should address it in a homily?

I think that the best thing that priest can do is to talk about that in his homily. It is emotionally exhausting for most of us. It is heartbreaking. When I preached a couple of weekends ago, I got emotional. I think it is very healing and good if priests allow themselves to feel and show that emotion. Feel and show how personally upsetting it is. If a priest is angry, tell your people, 'Yeah, I'm angry too, and you should be angry.' It should start there.

It is absolutely essential that this is addressed. No priest should be waiting for some directive from his bishop. I would hope that across the country most priests have already addressed this from the pulpit. If not, it absolutely has to happen.

People are very angry right now, and I do not think that they are identifying that anger as a hurt. Many people are channeling their anger into what needs to change in the Church. Some channel it at specific people in the Church.

You address healthy anger in the book, and I want to hear your thoughts on it in this context. What would you say to people who are very angry?

There is certainly such a thing as just anger. I would hope that most of the anger that what most committed Catholics are experiencing right now is precisely that -- “just anger.” I have experienced a good deal of bit of it in the past few weeks. Hopefully that anger does get channelled into good positive, action steps that I think Catholics are taking. But people should also be very honest with themselves: This hurts. I think that our brothers and sisters who are going through this right now, and they are many, need to own up to that.

That is a very healthy starting point to getting to a better place. In this context, it is an important part of rightly channeling our energies and our reactions prayerfully and in docility to the Holy Spirit. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to come fully into that experience of hurt in this ecclesial context.

The immediate victims of McCarrick, those who have suffered sexual exploitation, they are hurt in a very unique way, but in some sense this has inflicted a hurt on all of us. And those who failed, those who enabled him, those who pulled him up the ecclesiastical ladder, if they did so with knowledge of his sexual predation, that inflicts a real emotional hurt on all of us, and we should just admit that.

Many Catholics first faced these initial feelings of betrayal, shock, bewilderment in 2002. After positive steps forward like the Dallas Charter, these Catholics found some consolation in the fact that the Church had made positive changes. Now there are layers of hurt there, particularly the hurt of thinking that things were better and then discovering that they are not.

The Church might not change in our lifetimes. Reform in the Church takes so long. The Church is very good at reforming herself, but it can take centuries sometimes. I'm worried for people who are looking for a quick fix.

I think that you are hitting at the heart of the problem. One thing that we are being faced with in this crisis is the reality that effective change within the Church takes a very, very long time. Even within organizations, people talk about changing the internal culture of a business, even that in itself can take a long time.

First of all, there is no reason why we cannot continue to take genuine pride in the programs that have been set in place with the sacrifice and dedication by the way of hundreds of lay Catholic men and women who have jumped into this breach and who have instituted requirements for background checks, safe environment training, safe environment programs, who serve the Church as sexual abuse assistance coordinators in dioceses (these are people who deal one on one especially with victims of clergy sexual abuse.) So we have every reason frankly to be confident that we are in a much better place then we were 15 years ago to protect our children. There is no reason to doubt that.

What people are still reeling from, and this has been the real revelation, is that there has been, especially within the episcopacy, there has been an internal culture which allowed -- and I am not faulting all bishops here, but McCarrick is the child of an old boys school mentality, a culture where bishops too often understood themselves as members of this kind of privileged caste who used power and authority to manipulate and frankly to bring about all kind of harms and hurts in people's lives. Bishops have sadly often been the perpetrators of much of the hurt that has been experienced on many levels and in many forms in the Church. And that is a sickly culture and it has to change.

The Church desperately needs a healing in its episcopacy. This is very much a crisis of the episcopacy. The current ethos is in so many ways it is failing us. It is failing the Church. What we have is, in far too many cases, a kind of managerial approach. Bishops simply seek to manage, to contain, to bureaucratize our apostolates, and that is not a culture where the Church is going to thrive.

Is that going to change anytime soon? No, but I think that we have an opportunity. This crisis is putting a spotlight on that problematic culture within the episcopate. I think that we can be hopeful for some kind of change, maybe even sea change. There are good and holy bishops out there who are as incensed about this as you or I or any of us are. It is my prayer and hope that they will begin to exercise some very kind of unprecedented leadership within the body of bishops and certainly within their own dioceses.

So what do Catholics do meanwhile? Well, we are challenged to exercise the supernatural virtue of hope. We are challenged to believe that that kind of change, if it is meant to be, will take time, but we have to support every bishop who shows signs that they are getting it. We have to support every bishop who shows signs that they understand and that they are taking unprecedented steps towards transparency, toward addressing even the faults of their own brother bishops.

We need to be supportive and helpful, and I guess that is a long way of saying that we need to hang in there and trust in the Holy Spirit. Change does take a long time in the Church. We are called to continue to exercise hope and it is by sustaining hope and sustaining a healthy pressure on the bishops that can bring about some really positive change here, maybe faster than we think.

As outrageous as it is, I can imagine the temptation a leader might feel to keep something so scandalous secret, to think that they were protecting Catholics from scandal by a sort of false charity, if you will. How does a leader find the courage or strength to come forward with the truth after they have covered up?

In the context of the Church, bishops who get it have come to understand that the scandal has been the supposed effort to “avoid scandal.” The scandal has been covering this stuff up. The scandal has been keeping this stuff quiet.

This is what I always tell our seminarians. Transparency is your friend. Light and truth are our friends. Institutionally, I think that we are understanding that. In the context of seminary formation, I really believe earnestly that the vast majority of our men understand that. And I think understanding that also makes it easier to come clean when there has been a failure of any sort. In a sense, it all boils down to the old adage, 'Honesty is the best policy.'

Obviously, when you are talking about something as complex as sexual abuse and exploitation, that is obviously much more complex because sometimes you are dealing with victims who desire to remain anonymous.

It takes an enormous amount of courage for victims of abuse to come forward and go public. That's been 1 sad part of this whole tragedy. It is so difficult. The courage there is just amazing sometimes. I think the message of what we are learning in the sexual abuse crisis is that transparency is the only way to go. Honestly trying to protect the requirements of justice and people's reputations is a difficult balance and it definitely requires that transparency.

What do you recommend for those who are specifically dealing with disillusionment? How do Catholics keep their eyes open to the truth without totally succumbing to cynicism?

I think that the level of cynicism and disillusionment right now is off the charts. You know people often use that image of having a bandage ripped off a wound. I don't think that we have yet healed from -- I know we haven't healed from 2002. This isn't having a bandage ripped off. This is having that wound ripped open and stamped on.

I'm fully expecting that the level of disillusionment and just shear kind of numb confusion is going to be a very common experience. I think that there will be different outcomes. I hope that Catholics can believe that there is a way forward here, especially committed Catholics. It leads you to question your faith. I have been there. I have had that experience. The more you expose yourself to this, the more faith is going to be severely challenged.

I would just hope though that Catholics can understand that Jesus can lead them through that fire. He can lead us through this fire and make it a purifying fire, so that we can emerge from this really sad and really critical chapter of crisis in the Church, that we can emerge from this as stronger disciples and more committed Catholic Christians.

What transformation the Holy Spirit brings about, I hope we could no matter how hard this is, I hope we could kind of look forward to that with a sense of hope and expectation and maybe even the sense that as bad as it is, I want to be a part of what happens now. I want to be a part of the renewal that the Holy Spirit is going to necessarily going to bring about. I want to be a part of the action here. I want to be a part of what the Holy Spirit is going to do now in the Church. I am absolutely convinced that the Holy Spirit is working in and through this crisis in a very real way. I have experienced it myself. I have seen it and I have heard it from others.

We have to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us beyond this very profound disillusionment.

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Friday, June 1, 2018

Worldwide Sexual Revolution - originally sparked by criminal manipulation of facts - but still seeking to be free of morality, meaning, or purpose

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In each case, please go to the link for the complete article.

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WARNING : GRAPHIC IMAGES AT TIMES EVOKED BY SOME TEXTS DUE TO THE NATURE OF THE REALITY BEING REPORTED

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SCROLL DOWN TO SEE BELOW:

👉 SOME PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN SEXUALITY

👉 GLIMPSE OF SEX ED IN CANADA & USA

👉 COMPREHENSIVE SEXUAL EDUCATION - A HIDDEN AGENDA

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WORLDWIDE SEXUAL REVOLUTION - SOME FACTS

👉 In an age of #MeToo, women take a ‘second look’
at the sexual revolution By Courtney Grogan Washington - D.C., Jun 1, 2018
“Unlike our forerunners in 1968, those of us living today now have access to something they didn't -- 50 years of sociological, psychological, medical, and other evidence about the revolution's fallout,” said author and scholar Mary Eberstadt in the opening speech at a conference entitled, “The #MeToo Moment: Second Thoughts on the Sexual Revolution.”

👉 Randy Engel column
Meticulous documentation and references and easy readability are the hallmarks of Randy Engel's investigative writings. She has received numerous awards for excellence in investigative journalism including the Linacre Quarterly Award for Distinguished Writing by the Catholic Medical Association.

👉 The Global Sexual Revolution
Print Editions
The core of the global cultural revolution is the deliberate confusion of sexual norms. It is the culmination of a metaphysical revolution as well—a shifting of the fundamental ground upon which we stand and build a culture, even a civilization. Instead of desire being subjected to natural, social, moral, and transcendent orders, the identity of man and woman is dissolved, and free rein given to the maximum fulfillment of polymorphous urges, with no ultimate purpose or meaning.

👉 Global Sexual Revolution and Assault on Freedom and Family
German author and sociologist Gabriele Kuby discusses “gender mainstreaming”, the new totalitarianism, and being called a “homohater”

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There are facts and truths that the "Gay Lobby" doesn't want society or public opinion to know, that even IT doesn't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - is that we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To identify oneself on the basis of just the one element of our sexuality is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you.
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik

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👉 What Are the Kinsey Reports?
Strategy in defense of youth and their innocence - May 24, 2017
The Kinsey Reports are two books on human sexual behavior: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), written by Alfred Kinsey. It is now verified that Kinsey fabricated the data he presented, taking data from incarcerated sexual criminals and from boys who were experimented upon by pedophiles, and then extrapolating that data to create the impression it was data relating the behavior of normal people in the general population.

👉 The Kinsey Coverup
The Kinsey Coverup refers to the paid efforts of the mass media and the Kinsey Institute scientific establishment lobby to hide the facts of child sex abuse and fraud as the basis of Kinsey's alleged "scientific data" on human sexuality. Spiking legislative investigations into these barbaric “scientific” crimes and Liam Neeson’s glossy portrayal of Kinsey in the 2004 Kinsey feature film, qualify as part of this 60 year plus cover-up. At this link (above) you'll find a brief history of various legal actions on this matter, links to actual sex crimes in the Kinsey Reports, The Kinsey Institute's responses, articles about the Kinsey movie and other related documents. We hope this information will pique your interest. If so, we will add more information on this revolutionary change agent over time.

👉 The Kinsey Institute Exposed:
A Warning to Parents & Governments Throughout the World PDF FILE
On April 23, 2014 the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction was granted special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC). This decision was based in part on misleading testimony regarding the nature of their work provided by a Kinsey Institute representative to the United Nations Committee on Nongovernmental Organizations. From their fraudulent sex research, to their collaboration with pedophiles to publish their sex experiments on children, to their promotion of risky sexual behaviors as healthy and normal, which has formed the basis of dangerous sexuality education programs worldwide, the Kinsey Institute has caused incalculable harm to children, adults and families. For this reason the UN’s decision to grant ECOSOC status to the Kinsey Institute has outraged parents, government and civic leaders, lawmakers, researchers, and victims of sexual crimes around the world who understand how harmful the Kinsey Institute’s work has been, especially for the world’s children. This brief will show how the past and present actions, goals and aims of the Kinsey Institute merit condemnation and censure rather than the legitimacy, prestige and access that UN consultative status affords them and which enables them to perpetuate their harmful work on a much larger world stage.

👉 The Line Running from Charles Darwin through Margaret Sanger to Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a racist and a proponent of eugenics, to breed a superior human race in the name of Darwinian biology. By John West Published September 7, 2015

👉 The Rite of Sodomy:Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church Kindle Edition (4 book series)
"Author Randy Engel in The Rite of Sodomy has given readers a thoughtful, detailed, and very comprehensive overview of the history and ramifications of homosexuality and pederasty, and this provides a broad base for the detailed, exact, and well researched facts concerning the present ever expanding apparent social and political 'power" of the "Homosexual Collective" within and without the Roman Catholic Church," "The entire volume is a definite, carefully chronicled documentation of facts - naming names - and reinforced by the thousands of endnotes (footnotes) and covers entire historical periods," states Cillis. "The author has covered her subject from ancient times, throughout all the periods of human history, up to the present."

👉 Boiling frogs and silent lambs - July 15, 2015
Planned Parenthood selling baby parts - Why are we not upset? A mother's perspective.

👉 The Unrealized Horrors of Population Explosion
Retro Report on "The Population Bomb" (1968) By CLYDE HABERMAN - MAY 31, 2015
The second half of the 1960s was a boom time for nightmarish visions of what lay ahead for humankind. In 1966, for example, a writer named Harry Harrison came out with a science fiction novel titled “Make Room! Make Room!” Sketching a dystopian world in which too many people scrambled for too few resources, the book became the basis for a 1973 film about a hellish future, “Soylent Green.” In 1969, the pop duo Zager and Evans reached the top of the charts with a number called “In the Year 2525,” which postulated that humans were on a clear path to doom. No one was more influential — or more terrifying, some would say — than Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” sold in the millions with a jeremiad that humankind stood on the brink of apocalypse because there were simply too many of us. Dr. Ehrlich’s opening statement was the verbal equivalent of a punch to the gut: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” He later went on to forecast that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s, that 65 million of them would be Americans, that crowded India was essentially doomed, that odds were fair “England will not exist in the year 2000.” Dr. Ehrlich was so sure of himself that he warned in 1970 that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come.” By “the end,” he meant “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”

👉 Thinking It Through: The Consequences of Polygamy
Karlo Broussard - April 11, 2017 - Defenders of traditional marriage argue that redefining marriage to include same-sex unions undermines marital permanency (lifelong union) and exclusivity (only one spouse). If biological sex doesn’t matter, they argue, then why should duration and number? This is called a reductio ad absurdum argument. It attempts to show the absurd conclusions that legal recognition of same-sex marriage logically leads to—namely, the legal recognition of “temporary marriage” as well as multiple-partner marriage. Since we can no longer assume that the culture views the above unions as absurd, defenders of traditional marriage must mount a different defense of permanency and exclusivity. And the way to do this is the same way we defend sexual complementarity in marriage: we look to nature’s design for human sexuality.

👉 What you think you know about human trafficking is probably wrong Washington D.C., Feb 11, 2016 - Human trafficking. It’s been called “modern-day slavery” and a “silent epidemic.” It affects tens of millions every year and yet remains largely in the shadows – even within the United States. Much remains to be done in fighting the scourge of human trafficking, say experts and survivors. And that starts with a better understanding of what trafficking really looks like. But while initiatives based on awareness, prevention and recovery are taking place at different levels throughout the country, a key part of efforts to combat the practice may be at risk.

SOME PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN SEXUALITY

👇 "I want my sexuality to be fulfilling!" 👇

The surprisingly positive Catholic view of sex and love

As Catholics, how do we approach sexuality?

Knights of Columbus - Catholic Sexual Ethics

👉 Sex, Sin and Salvation: What Augustine Really Said
David G. Hunter, PhD - July 2, 2013
A more careful examination of what Augustine actually said and preached discloses that he did not at all hate sex and pleasure; as many of his critics have claimed, especially in modern times.

👉 Declaration on Certain Questions of Sexual Ethics
Published by Scepter - By The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
At the Audience granted on 7 November 1975 to the undersigned Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Sovereign Pontiff by divine providence Pope Paul VI approved this Declaration "On certain questions concerning sexual ethics," confirmed it, and ordered its publication. Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 29 December 1975.

👉 Sexuality and Human Development
There are a number of discourses touching on human sexuality. Many of these discourses carry agendas held and promoted by various interests, but all too often they treat human sexuality as something rigid, closed and determined for all time. In adopting such materialistic perspectives, they leave out any consideration of the very complex and dynamic process of human development. It has been established in psychology and psychotherapy that the human developmental process does not come “full circle” until the early twenties. In other words, human beings – from the moment of conception until they arrive at the threshold of adulthood – go through a number of developmental stages. At each stage, something new develops and is added to the overall character and personality of each unique human individual. By the age of 18 or so, all the elements of humanity are “in place”; from that point on, it becomes a question of ongoing experience and development.

👉 God's Plan for Life and Love
KofC Magazine Columbia - January 2011 - Promoting Human Dignity - AS EVERY good medical student knows, “do good” and “do no harm” are basic principles of medical ethics. Like the Hippocratic Oath, they not only embody the purpose of health care but also reflect a practical understanding of human nature. They imply that human beings possess dignity that should be respected and promoted and that our actions toward others are objectively good or harmful.

👉 No Sex, please
A growing number of young people are identifying themselves as asexual - not interested in physical relationships - even though the world around them is charged with sexual imagery. By DONNA NEBENZAHL - published by The Gazette, Montreal QC Canada - May 9, 2005

👉 Towards a true sexual liberation
I want to be happy … You want to be happy … They want to be happy … Yes, everyone is looking for happiness. Everyone wants to be happy! Usually, as we look for happiness, we intuitively seek it in love. Why should this be a surprise? We were made by Love personified, and for Love with a capital “L”! We are made to love and to be loved.

👉 How the GLS Inspired a Pastor to Care for Victims of Human Trafficking in York Region
Garry James is the pastor at Valley View Alliance Church in Newmarket, Ontario. Before August of 2010, Garry James was a comfortable pastor in a suburban church in Newmarket, Ontario. According to Garry, Global Leadership Summit speaker Christine Caine wrecked his comfortable life that August as he watched her speak at the 2010 GLS. Caine, the founder of the international organization Abolishing Human Trafficking in the 21st Century (A21), told the story of a girl who was shipped overseas from North America to Greece with 60 other girls in a shipping container. 30 of the girls with her died due to an oxygen supply malfunction in the container, 20 drowned after being thrown overboard, and the rest were sent to a brothel in Athens. “In my generation?” Garry thought. “On my watch as a pastor? This is actually happening in my world?”

👉 How a nuns' home is helping girls freed from sex trafficking
By Kevin Jones - Baton Rouge, La., Jan 11, 2018 - The numbers are staggering. Each year in the U.S. alone, some 300,000 minors are victims of sex trafficking. In Louisiana, state estimates indicate that about 40 percent of juvenile victims are being trafficked by their primary care giver: a mother, father, foster parent, uncle, a mother’s boyfriend. Father Jeff Bayhi has heard unspeakable stories of sex trafficking victims over the years. That’s why the pastor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Zachary, La. has worked to open Metanoia Home, a Baton Rouge-area shelter for sixteen women under age 21. Caring for the victims are four Hospitaler Sisters of Mercy from India, Nigeria, the Philippines and Madagascar.

GLIMPSE OF SEX ED IN CANADA & USA

👉 Sex Education: The Final Plague by Randy Engel
Proves why classroom sex education is always wrong and always harmful; that it destroys modesty; awakens the passions; promotes sexual activity and fosters acceptance of sexual sins. Shows where it comes from; who promotes it; that it is all-pervasive. Gives the Church's position; that sex education is the right and duty of parents only; which may be delegated to others; but never usurped! A must for parents; teachers and priests.

👉 Learning Content in Sexuality Education
Québec Kindergarten and Elementary School

👉 ÉDUCATION À LA SEXUALITÉ
Aperçu du programme du ministère de l’Éducation du Québec

👉 SEXUALITY EDUCATION
Reflecting on the New Sexuality Education Program in Quebec

👉 ESCC Letter to the Québec Minister of Education

👉 A History of Sex Education in the United States Since 1900

👉 Grades 1-8 Health and Physical Education
2 0 1 5 REVISED The Ontario Curriculum

COMPREHENSIVE SEXUAL EDUCATION - A HIDDEN AGENDA

It is true that in many countries universal health care is not yet fully available or completely effective. Women often suffer - especially poor women - and even die when simply health care would have saved them. Comprehensive Sexual Education is being widely promoted, pressured, or imposed by various international NGO's with a vested interest in liberal sexual values. The hidden agenda is the promotion or imposition of widely available abortion services and contraceptive services, which ironically go hand in hand. Human and traditional values are deliberately or inadvertently ridiculed and CSE is touted as primarily to extend universal health services and care to women. So the hidden agenda of amplifying contraception and abortion is buried within the more humanitarian language of extending proper health care to women and girls.

👉 U.N. organizations and NGO's involved in "Sexual and reproductive health"

👉 Sexual health, human rights and the law - document
NOTE: The following excerpts were taken directly from this publication. The excerpts clearly show that UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other partners in the Human Reproduction Program—including the UNDP, UNFPA, the World Bank, UNAIDS and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)—are pushing a radical abortion and sexual rights agenda under the guise of “sexual health.” Here is a critical reading of the above U.N. document by STOP CSE:
👉 Sexual health, human rights and the law - critique

👉 COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION:12 HARMFUL EFFECTS ON CHILDREN
1. SEXUALIZES CHILDREN 2. TEACHES CHILDREN TO CONSENT TO SEX 3. NORMALIZES ANAL & ORAL SEX 4. PROMOTES HOMOSEXUAL / BISEXUAL BEHAVIOR 5. TEACHES CHILDREN ABOUT SEXUAL PLEASURE 6. PROMOTES SOLO & MUTUAL MASTURBATION 7. EROTICIZES CONDOM USE 8. PROMOTES UNSCIENTIFIC TRANSGENDER IDEOLOGY 9. PROMOTES CONTRACEPTION / ABORTION TO CHILDREN 10. PROMOTES PEER-TO-PEER SEX ED / SEXUAL RIGHTS ADVOCACY 11. REFERS KIDS TO HARMFUL RESOURCES, LIKE PLANNED PARENTHOOD 12. UNDERMINES OR VIOLATES PARENTAL RIGHTS

👉 CSE Harmful Elements Analysis Tool
The CSE Harmful Elements Analysis Tool was created to help parents, school administrators, educators, and other concerned citizens assess, evaluate, and expose harmful elements within comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) curricula and materials. For more information, visit www.stopcse.org.

👉 Evaluation of Rights, Respect, Responsibility (3Rs) Based on 15 Harmful CSE Elements
Rights, Respect, Responsibility contains 15 out of 15 of the harmful elements typically found in CSE curricula. Since each of these 15 harmful elements has the potential of causing long-term negative effects on the health and well-being of children, having even one of these elements should be reason enough to disqualify a program from being taught to children. A program containing several of these elements should be banned from use in any school or community setting.

👉 The History & Agenda Behind CSE
One of the main goals of comprehensive sexuality education is to radically change the gender and sexual norms of society and to establish rights for children as sexually autonomous beings. In order to fulfill these alleged sexual rights, activists claim that children must have unfettered access to “comprehensive” sexual information that leaves no sexual knowledge behind.

👉 How CSE is Disguised Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) comes in many forms and can be disguised under the banners of:
(this is not an exhaustive list) - “comprehensive sex education” “sexual education” “sexuality education” “education, information or counseling on human sexuality” “comprehensive sexual health education, information or services” “ sexual and reproductive health training, education or information” “sexual health education or services” “HIV/AIDS prevention education” “life skills programs” “comprehensive education on human sexuality” “health and human rights education” “rights-based sexuality education” See complete list

👉 UNICEF / Planned Parenthood Partnership Promotes Radical Sexual Rights for Children
UNICEF and other UN agencies partner with Planned Parenthood through their Human Reproduction Programme (HRP). In their HRP publication, Sexual Health, Human Rights, and the Law, UNICEF and Planned Parenthood, along with their other partners are promoting abortion, sexual rights for children, the decriminalization of prostitution, the weakening of parental rights, health services for transgender sex changes, and much more.

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Field Hospital for Meaning, Purpose, and Fulfillment in Human Intimacy and Sexuality

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Pope Francis: Abortion is like hiring a hitman

Sunday, September 30, 2018

L'AVORTEMENT PROVOQUÉ ET LA CONTRACEPTION - LES EFFETS / THE EFFECTS OF ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Archbishop Lépine: No refuge in the Church for sex assault perpetrators & "BREAKING THE SILENCE" - Claude Ryan Lecture, Newman Centre, McGill University

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Where is Jesus in the midst of the Church's sex abuse crisis?

Friday, June 1, 2018

Worldwide Sexual Revolution - originally sparked by criminal manipulation of facts - but still seeking to be free of morality, meaning, or purpose

Beyond sex politics is God's unconditional love for every human being. Until we learn and accept to love as God loves, we suffer and cause suffering, but God kindly remains with us in it.

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