The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality

The Catechist says they have the right to tell your child about sex. A teacher in a Catholic school says that the Government says we must show pornography to your 5 year old. The Bishop says his hands are tied, and the experts have said it is okay. Thank God that as Catholics we can look to Christ's Vicar on Earth in Rome, when things seem so dark. The Vatican document, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, is a good place to start. There's no replacement for reading the document yourself (and no excuse for Catholic parents not to), but on Thursday 26th May at 8pm there will be a 30 minute programme on EWTN (sky 589 or online) about this document - maybe it would be a good place to start.

Stuart McCullough

A Change of Heart

‘Oonagh’ is 21, she met one of our counsellors outside a notorious abortuary and came to us for a pregnancy test. She was upfront to me, ‘I had an abortion last month, and if this test is positive, I want to have another abortion the next minute.’

Her test was negative, so I asked her, “if you get a positive test soon, what would you do?”
“I’d find a new abortion clinic.”
“Why would you find a new clinic?”
“Well if I found a new place it might be better...Going back to the old clinics makes me feel like a women whose had three abortions, but I know that’s what I am...but...”
“What didn’t you like about the other clinics?”
It had disturbed her that they didn’t tell her the age of the baby. Nor had she asked them.

'I convinced myself that I was only two weeks pregnant', but she had had a second trimester abortion. Oonagh had gone home after her first abortion, and had ‘been so out of it, so frozen like that I didn’t hear people when they spoke to me’. Her family found their daughter had ‘become too weird’, and asked her to leave.

She lived with a boyfriend in cramped rented accommodation. She got pregnant a second time, panicked and went for her second abortion. When she was getting on the table, she cried out, ‘I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know what I’m doing...’ A nurse just blanked her and said, ‘Well you came here...so...let’s get it over and done with.’
When she got pregnant a third time, she just said to her boyfriend that she ‘needed an abortion’. It had become fixed in her mind that pregnancy equated to having an abortion, but she still felt ‘dead inside’ after each abortion.
A week after my meeting with her, Oonagh came back for a pregnancy re-test which was also negative. She saw the film "After The Choice" and listened to the words of other women giving their testimonies of how they had felt deadened and isolated after abortion.

Oonagh said, “this is amazing! I always thought it was just me who never told anyone about my abortions! I always thought that I was the only one who had problems after an abortion.
Oonagh shared with me how she has told her boyfriend that she ‘is through with abortion'. They have started practising chastity, and she has firmly told him that if he wants to sleep with her, and put her in the position of getting pregnant, then he will have to marry her. Personally, Oonagh's change of heart surprised me. But it gave me enormous hope that while no woman plans to get in this downward spiral, one woman can make plans to change her life so that she is free from the possibility of a crisis pregnancy.

Please keep her in your prayers.

Mary O' Regan

Slandering Our Lord Through Ignorance - Tina Beattie's Shallow Understanding of Catholicism

Before the Pope's visit, there was a lot of talk about the debate on priestly celibacy which was held in central London the night before Pope Benedict arrived. Since then hardly a word has been said about it. True their have been some very muted reports in the Catholic press but it was hard to get any feel of the debate at all from them. Apparantly the vote at the end was in favour of the dropping of the requirement of celibacy. So all the more strange then that we didn't get this rammed at us morning, noon and night by the secular press and the more loony liberal sections of the Catholic press. Or maybe we did and I just missed it? I don't read the Tablet after all...

But I did find this one little extract in last week's Catholic Times (26/09/10):

"Asked to respond to the arguments made by Bishop Malcolm McMahon in favour of mandatory celibacy, Professor Tina Beattie said that after listening to him talk about Jesus Christ as being "male and celibate, it seems to me that the defining characteristic of God incarnate was that He..."

I can't find it in myself to use her words in the same sentence as Our Blessed Lord's name, but she continues by saying that Our Lord's defining characteristic according to the Bishop was that He had male genitals but did not use them.

Ms Beattie, who is Professor of Catholic Studies, shows such a deep lack of understanding of the Church's theology that it is hard to discuss anything she says without falling into ridicule. Does she really believe that tens of thousands of Catholics who practise celibacy or chastity outside of marriage are just people who don't use their genitals? Imagine the shallowness of mind of someone who can glean no understanding of the sacrificial love and self-mastery that such a calling demands of one? Someone who cannot see that a chaste, celibate life demands such depths of virtue from us that it teaches us how to love God, ourselves and our neighbours as we should. That through it we are called to enter into the depths of loneliness sometimes, and at times to enter into the tomb with Our Lord awaiting the resurrection. That such a struggle, even when we fail but repent prepares us for Marriage, for Priesthood or Religious life, or for a vocation of single life. It evens the playing field between those attracted to members of the opposite sex and those with homosexual tendencies - since all are called to practise chastity - and especially since in our day many heterosexual people will never marry. Imagine having no realisation that the chaste, celibate life of Christ is actually something which allows people of all walks of life, all sexual orientations and all callings to be able to identify with Christ in a personal way that transforms them and prepares them for the great Marriage feast in the heavenly Jerusalem?

And tell me how can a person with such a limited understanding of this issue be a "Professor of Catholic Studies?"

Clare McCullough

40 Days for Life Starts in London Today

I like reading the SPUC Blog by John Smeaton. My heart was uplifted one evening recently when via the SPUC blog I accessed Robert Colquhoun's blog, called 'Love Undefiled' In my opinion what is on there should be taught to young people gradually at appropriate ages regarding sex education. For example there is a powerpoint presentation on chastity, information on the theology of the body etc. What a contrast to what our young people are bombarded with daily, by the media, family planning and abortion clinics, clinics treating sexually transmitted diseases, infertility etc.
'Love Undefiled' is a fantastic resource, so if you do access it spread the word. In addition Robert Colquhoun is the organiser of a 40 day prayerful, peaceful vigil aiming to end abortion and due to commence today in London - Wednesday 22nd September. Thank God for Robert and all those other young people who have faith, hope and charity and who are relying on God's grace and the power of prayer to fight for life against the culture of death.
http://loveundefiled.blogspot.com/
www.40daysforlife.com/london

Ronni O' Gara