A ghoulish news item in March predictably slipped under the radar of the major secular media. As part of a frenzy of activity in its last days, the administration of outgoing U.S. president Bill Clinton passed regulations that redefined the terms “fetus” and “child” to allow the legal use of newborns in scientific research.
The regulation was approved January 17, two days before Clinton left office. It was one of a plethora of last-minute rules changes suspended by the incoming administration of George W. Bush. The Clinton regulation stated that a newborn is still considered a fetus until it was determined the baby would live by “independently maintaining a heartbeat and respiration.” Only after this determination would the baby be considered a “child” under the law.
The sixty-day moratorium on Clinton’s new regulations expired March 19, but a coalition of pro-life congressmen convinced Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to extend the moratorium on the fetus rule another sixty days.
“If this rule is allowed to proceed, the position of the federal Department of Health and Human Services with regard to ‘human research subjects’ will be that babies born alive are not necessarily children,” the congressmen wrote. “This cannot and should not be the position of an agency tasked with defending children and protecting life.”
Some pro-life groups criticized the extension of the moratorium, saying the regulation should be not just delayed but struck down. “It shouldn’t take sixty days to see how bad this is,” said American Life League spokesman Patrick Delaney in a refreshing burst of logic. “It only took me forty-five minutes.”
—Tim Ryland
Pillar Grenades
He’s a stealth commando in hostile territory, though you wouldn’t suspect it to look at him. In the heart of historically anti-Catholic territory rife with Jack Chick tracts and preaching against the Painted Woman of Rome, he’s a secret Catholic evangelist. Today in the New South, he must also fight perhaps even greater challenges: secularism, paganism, and religious indifference.
Mike (he asks that his actual name not be used) works quietly at his job, worships faithfully, and serves in other, more traditional ministries in the local church. Unbeknownst to most who know him, he also targets total strangers with the gospel message. He keeps a supply of apologetic and pro-life materials in his car to use on an as-needed basis.
“I’ve been doing this for four or five years,” he says. “I know I can’t be the only one who is.” In parking lots, whenever he spots a pro-abortion bumper sticker, a Darwin emblem mocking the Christian fish symbol, or another indicator that the car’s driver could use a dose of Catholic truth, Mike places a copy of Catholic Answers’ tract Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth under the wiper blade. Often he tucks another appropriate tract inside.
“I do about fifty at a time,” he says. “I put ten in my cup holder to have them ready. People may throw them away, but maybe someone will read them. If there is any change of heart, it’s God who will do it. I just hope I can be useful this way.”
Mike used to copy, staple, and fold laboriously his own handouts, but he found it “too cumbersome and too expensive. . . . Pillar actually costs a little more, but you don’t have to copy it. You can get a hundred copies for $60.”
Distributing copies became a regular activity because of a windfall. “When I inherited some money, I took twenty percent of it and spent it on things to promote the Catholic faith. One of the things I did was buy a thousand copies of Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth for $300.”
Mike admits that people with satanic emblems or NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) stickers on their cars may not be open to Pillar‘s message. But at least it will be there if they are. “Just about anyone who can read English can understand it,” he says. “I want people to think about these things that they don’t usually think about.
“Every now and then I get caught, and people yell at me, but that’s an occupational hazard,” he chuckles.
He invites others to join him in these benign commando raids, and he recommends backing up the effort with two other activities: perpetual Eucharistic adoration and having Masses said for the evangelization effort.
“The Lord is going to bless that. I can’t say that everyone who gets Pillar is going to become a Catholic, but you never know.”
—Terrye Newkirk
Money Isn’t Always the Bottom Line
The Los Angeles Times reported in early April that Adelphia Communications Corporation, owner of the nation’s sixth-largest cable company, has removed sexually oriented channels from its lineup. John Rigas, founder and president of Adelphia, ordered the channels purged from the cable television company when he acquired it. Rigas, 76, says he operates his business and personal life in line with Christian principles.
The Times reported that Adelphia, with about 5.6 million customers, “is the only one of the nation’s eight large cable companies that lacks adult programming.” High profits are associated with TV pornography.
Opponents are hopping mad, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Listen to Susan Block, a so-called sexologist whose explicit show was scrapped: “This old-fashioned moralist from small-town Pennsylvania is trying to dictate programming to open-minded Angelenos and is flouting the rules of public access.” Peter Eliasberg, an attorney with-who else?-the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “What Adelphia is doing is illegal.”
Despite these reactions, and visits from Playboy Channel executives asking to reinstate their programming, Rigas says the company is not changing its position. “We’ve had letters from all over the country thanking us for taking that kind of stand,” he notes.
—Brian Kelleher
Another Scary Threat to Liberty?
Speaking of the good old ACLU, it filed a federal lawsuit March 20 against the recently enacted Children’s Internet Protection Act, which was slated to go into effect on April 20. This nationwide law requires schools and libraries that receive federal aid for Web access to have filtering software in place to protect children from obscene or pornographic material. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, were among the plaintiffs.
“In the 1920s and ’30s, Planned Parenthood fought successfully to eliminate laws that prohibited the sending of sex information in the U.S. mail, thereby opening it to the pornography industry,” said Ed Szymkowiak, national director of STOPP International. “In 1996, Planned Parenthood launched a successful legal challenge to the Communications Decency Act, which would have kept pornography off the Internet.”
Szymkowiak believes the new law will affect Planned Parenthood’s own youth-oriented web site, teenwire.com. “This site contains graphic descriptions of deviant behavior,” he said. “Any reliable filtering software would block this site. Once again Planned Parenthood is defending pornography against the will of the American people. [It] has shown once again that it does not care about children.”
—B. K.
Church in Britain Facing Crisis
The number of Catholic priests in Britain is expected to be cut in half in the next ten to fifteen years, according to a two-hundred-page report, “Diocesan Dispositions and Parish Voices.” The report, issued in late March by the Queen’s Foundation for Theological Education in Birmingham, accuses the Church in England and Wales of being “in denial” about an imminent crisis. It claims that many parish priests will either retire or die in the next ten years, there are not enough priests in training to replace them, and no strategy is in place to cope with the shortage. Six dioceses took part in the research, and four hundred fifty bishops, priests, and lay people were consulted.
“The implications for the parishes are immense,” the report says. “The role of the priest will inevitably change, and he will not be accessible as he once was.” The prediction: nearly a third of churches could be without priests by 2005.
The report placed the blame partly on the “narrow focus” of parishioners who are concerned about internal matters such as Mass times, car parking, and parish halls and not vocations or mission. When asked to rate the ten most important issues facing the Church, British Catholics ranked the shortage of priests seventh. The first concern was the number of young people leaving the Church.
—Dan Trimly
And Well They Should Be Concerned
Another survey earlier in the same month showed Britain’s young Christians disagree with their churches’ moral teachings and believe sex outside of marriage is morally acceptable. Eighty-five percent of young Catholics say the Church’s teaching against sex outside marriage is wrong. Only half thought abortion was wrong.
In comparison, forty-two percent of Muslims believe divorce is wrong and forty-nine percent say sex should be confined to marriage. Most Muslims (fifty-eight percent) were against abortion.
Rev. Leslie Francis of Bangor University conducted the research. “These are highly disturbing findings for Christians,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “They demonstrate a significant gap between traditional Church teaching on major moral issues and the beliefs of the younger generation.”
—D. T.
John XXIII: Blessed and Incorrupt
Cardinal Virgilio Noe, archpriest of St. Peter’s basilica, announced March 27 that the body of Pope Blessed John XXIII, who died in 1963 and was beatified last September by Pope John Paul II, has remained incorrupt. Catholic World News carried the report later that day.
“It is a providential coincidence, a sign of divine favor and of holiness,” said Cardinal Noe during a meeting with reporters about his book, Tombs and Monuments of St. Peter’s and the Vatican.
On January 16-in the presence of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State of the Holy See, Bishop Leonardo Sandri, and Cardinal Noe-the tomb of John XXIII was opened for the recognition of his mortal remains. After a half-day of work, the witnesses could see the face of John XXIII, “intact and serene” according to Cardinal Noe.
Pope John Paul II had decided to transfer the remains from the Vatican crypt located under the basilica into the basilica itself as a mark of the holiness of John XXIII. “It was not easy to find a place in the basilica where we can build the new tomb for John XXIII,” said the cardinal. The choice was made for the St. Jerome crypt, located on the line of the central span, not far from the statue of St. Peter. John XXIII, a specialist in the fathers of the Church, was devoted to St. Jerome.
During a “liturgical ceremony” that should take place in the next few months, Blessed John XXIII will join the forty-seven other popes who rest in the basilica. Among these popes is Boniface VIII, who died in 1303 and whose body was also found incorrupt in 1605.
—T. R.
Some Catholics Want to Share Communion with Lutherans
The Vatican issued a caution regarding last year’s joint Catholic-Lutheran accord on justification. The new statement, which appeared in the March 25 issue of L’Osservatore Romano, pointed out that the accord can be understood properly only in light of the accompanying statements put forward by the Holy See.
In the statement, drafted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, the Vatican observed that while “the Lutheran conception is no longer condemned by the Catholic Church,” there remain some important doctrinal differences. By guarding against misinterpretation, the Vatican said, both groups can protect the future development of common theological positions.
The new statement is apparently a response to the suggestions offered by some Catholics-especially in Germany, where the joint Catholic-Lutheran statement was signed-that members of the two faiths should now be able to celebrate the Eucharist together. Today, the statement said, “when there is no unity on essential doctrinal matters, the common celebration of the Eucharist would not be truthful, and could suggest that the division among Christians is insurmountable.”
The CDF and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity also recall that when the joint Catholic-Lutheran statement was issued, the Holy See issued an accompanying statement indicating that the teachings of the Council of Trent and Vatican I were not being changed. Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the Vatican representative at the signing ceremony, observed at the time that while the joint statement was an important step toward theological accord, “it is not the end of the road.”
—T.R.