The Church in the service of truth and charity - Bl. John Paul II

The work of building up the Body of Christ has been entrusted to all of us in the Church. Today a vital demand for evangelization certainly exists. This can take a variety of forms. There are many ways of serving the Gospel. Despite scientific and technological progress, which actually reflects a sort of human cooperation in God's creative work, the Faith is challenged and even directly opposed by ideologies and life-styles recognizing neither God nor the moral law.

The fundamental human and Christian values are put in question by criminality, violence and terrorism. Honesty and justice in the work-place and in public life are often violated. All over the world vast sums are being spent on armaments, while millions of poor people struggle for the barest necessities of life. Alcoholism and drug addiction lay a heavy tribute on the individual and on society. The commercial exploitation of sex through pornography is an insult to human dignity and a danger to the future of the young. Family life is being subjected to strong pressures, now that many people mistakenly regard fornication, adultery, divorce and contraception as acceptable. Unborn children are cruelly put to death, and the lives of the aged are gravely endangered by a mentality that would be happy to fling wide the door to euthanasia.

Faced with all this, the Christian faithful should not allow themselves to be discouraged, nor should they conform to the spirit of the world. On the contrary, they are called to recognize the supremacy of God and of his law, to make their voices heard and to unite their efforts on behalf of moral values, to set society an example by their own right conduct and to help the needy. Christians are called to act, in the serene conviction that grace is more powerful than sin, thanks to the victory of the Cross of Christ.

Christ's Cross has bought us freedom from the slavery of sin an,d death. This freedom, this liberation, is so fundamental and all-embracing as to demand a freedom from all the other forms of slavery which are bound up with the introduction of sin into the world.

This liberation insists that we struggle against poverty. And it requires all who belong to Christ to commit themselves to making tenacious efforts to alleviate the sufferings of the poor. Yes, the Church's evangelizing mission includes energetic and sustained action to achieve justice, peace and over-all human development. Not to perform these tasks would be to fail in the work of evangelization; it would be to betray the example set by Christ, who came 'to bring good news to the poor' (Luke 4:18); it would in fact be to reject the results of the Incarnation, in which 'the Word became flesh' (John 2:14).

Like a good mother, the Church loves everyone: children, young people, the aged, workers, the homeless, the starving, the handicapped, those who suffer in spirit, and those who acknowledge their sins and so, through her, experience the healing touch of Christ. To such, but particularly to the poor, the Church offers the Good News of the human and supernatural dignity of the human person. In Christ, we have been raised to the state of children of God.

We are God's children, called to live in dignity in this world and destined to eternal life. The Church is the home of poor and rich alike, 'for there is no favouritism with God' (Galatians 2:61). Yet each community in the Church should make a particular effort to make the poor feel absolutely at home in it.

The Church demonstrates her vitality through the broadness of her charity. There can be no greater disaster for her than for her love to grow weak. The Church should spare no efforts in demonstrating her compassion for the neediest and for all victims of pain, by alleviating their sufferings, by serving them and by helping them to give a salvific meaning to their sufferings.

The Church and the dignity of the person - Pope John Paul II

Man has been compelled to submit to a conception of reality imposed on him by coercion, and not reached by virtue of his own reason and the exercise of his own freedom. This principle must be overturned and total recognition must be given to the rights of the human conscience, which is bound only to the truth, both natural and revealed. The recognition of these rights represents the primary foundation of every authentically free political order.

No one can consider himself extraneous or indifferent to the lot of another member of the human family. No one can say that he is not responsible for the well-being of his brother or sister (Genesis 4:9, Luke 10:29-37, Matthew 25:31-46).
Since it is not an ideology, the Christian faith does not presume to imprison changing socio-political realities in a rigid schema, and it recognizes that human life is realized in history in conditions that are diverse and imperfect. Furthermore, in constantly reaffirming the transcendent dignity of the person, the Church's method is always that of respect for freedom.

But freedom attains its full development only by accepting the truth. In a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation and man is exposed to the violence of passion and to manipulation, both open and hidden. The Christian upholds freedom and serves it, constantly offering to others the truth which he has known (John 8:31-32), in accordance with the missionary nature of his vocation. While paying heed to every fragment of truth which he encounters in the life experience and in the culture of individuals and of nations, he will not fail to affirm in dialogue with others all that his faith and the correct use of reason have enabled him to understand.

Man's principal resource is man himself. His intelligence enables him to discover the earth's productive potential and the many ways in which human needs can be satisfied. It is his disciplined work in close collaboration with others that makes possible the creation of ever more extensive working communities which can be relied on to transform man's natural and human environments.

Doctors back 'right to die'

Another Tuesday morning ruined. This is from The Gazette in Montreal. My Comments are in Red.

Euthanasia is already a reality in Quebec hospitals, the president of the federation of Quebec medical specialists, told a National Assembly committee yesterday.

Doctors know when death is "imminent and inevitable," Gaétan Barrette explained.

But doctors are aware they can be charged with murder if they administer a "palliative sedative" before a patient is on his or her last breath.

Geoffrey Kelley, chairman of the committee, explained that MNAs will hear about 30 expert witnesses on "dying with dignity" to prepare a paper for a travelling public consultation this fall. (Dying with Dignity is very different from being snuffed out by a doctor who thinks he knows more about life and death than The Almighty God)

Barrette told the committee the issue of euthanasia could not be discussed in Quebec 50 years ago, comparing it with the evolution in thinking about abortion.

"Doctors are ready to debate euthanasia," Barrette said. And like abortion, he said, limits must be established. Not every patient will want euthanasia and not all doctors will agree to perform the procedure.(Living in Canada we have seen how easy it is to over turn legal safeguards, google up Gay Marriage and legal safe guards in Vancouver, the bill will be written with legal safeguards and as soon as it becomes law the legal safegaurds will be overturned by the Human Rights Tribunals)

Barrette explained that a patient who is lucid consults with a doctor, friends and family members before requesting euthanasia.

For patients who are not lucid, a biological will can guide relatives who must decide. (Can you see the throng of money grabbing relatives waiting to pull the plug so that they can have the money, to hell with what the patient really wants)

The patient could have a terminal disease, like cancer. And patients at the "end of life" could be babies born with serious medical difficulties or seniors whose bodies are shutting down, one system after another. (No Bloody way are we going to kill little babies without trying our best to save them first, no matter what the cost life is worth it.)

"It's a cascade," Barrette said. "We can't invent it. We see it. There are safeguards."

Barrette said palliative care, using opiates to ease the pain, is also an important facet of end-of-life care.

"The choice of the patient is his choice," he said. "We want legislation in tune with the wishes of the public."

Polls indicate a high percentage of Quebecers favour euthanasia, including doctors.

But Barrette and Yves Lamontagne of the Quebec College of Physicians told the committee that doctors do not want to perform assisted suicides.

"We are not there to execute people," Lamontagne said.

Euthanasia, the decision to end life when death is imminent and inevitable, is "extremely complex and emotionally charged," Lamontagne added.

Yves Robert, secretary of the College, told the committee that Quebec is the only jurisdiction in Canada where patients can refuse medical treatment, which can lead to death.

"It doesn't exist elsewhere in Canada," Robert said. "We are ahead. Can we go farther?"

Euthanasia Laws in Kerela India oppsed by Catholic church

I found this article online

Church leaders in Kerala state, southern India, are up in arms against the state government's move to legalize euthanasia.

Media reports said the Kerala Law Reforms Commission has prepared a draft bill for legalizing euthanasia as one of its recommendations for legal reform. If the state government, a coalition of communist parties, accepts it, Kerala will become India's first state to legalize euthanasia.

The Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council has publicly opposed the move, releasing statements in the media since media reported on the draft bill in the last week of December.

The council's Family Commission chairman, Bishop Mathew Anikuzhikattil of Idukki, said the Church would use all democratic means to oppose legislation allowing euthanasia.

About 100 representatives from all 29 Catholic dioceses met on Jan. 14 in Kochi, the state's commercial center, 2,960 kilometers south of New Delhi, to discuss the draft bill. They protested the bill by burning a copy of it.

Having read the draft, Bishop Anikuzhikattil said legally sanctioning such a practice is "anti-humane and against basic principles of Christian faith." The commission is scheduled to submit the report of its recommendations to the government on Jan. 24, but it was released to media in advance.

For more details refer to the entire article here

Please pray for India and the Catholics there the catholic church is really facing a crisis in India.

St. Alfonsa - India's first Woman saint.

The wonders and marvels of God never cease, while Catholics and Christians in India suffer under terrible persecutions, God our loving father has raised up a saint from India to lead us through this time.



The baptismal name of St. Alfonsa is Anna Muttathupadam; she was born on August 19, 1919, in Kudamaloor, in Kerala. Her mother died when she was a baby. At the age of 17 she entered the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception.

Her delicate health was held to be an obstacle in religious life and her superiors wanted her to return to her home; but Sister Alfonsa persevered in her vocation and made her perpetual vows in 1936. She died 10 years later at age 35.

In 1936, she took perpetual vows at the monastery of the Claretians of Malabar in Bharananganam.

Her work was teaching, but she soon had to leave it for health reasons. She bravely endured her illness until her death, on July 28, 1946. The bishop of Palai began the diocesan process of beatification in 1955, and on November 9, 1984, she was declared venerable. On February 8, 1986, Pope John Paul II beatified her in Kottayam, in India, together with another Indian blessed, Kuriakose Elias Chavara.

“This is a great moment for the Indian Church," says Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, head of the Indian bishops' conference, "God has raised up to the highest honour a person who the world considered useless and sickly. Today Blessed Alfonsa will be a living catechesis that the Catholic Church produces children who are holy bearing fruit, and in a twist of irony curing the sick, the humble one who understands the intimacy of union with Christ through suffering.”

The cardinal compares the life of the blessed with the experience of St. Teresa of Lisieux, in which the brevity of life marked by "physical suffering" is exalted by the "salvific dimension" that is present in faith in Christ, at a particular moment of the Indian Church, marked by the martyrdom and violence against Christians in many areas of the country.

"We live in a time," continues the president of the Indian bishops, "where the world wants to deny suffering and the cross, even the tremendous scientific and technological progress unfortunately are used to get rid to the suffering through any means there are other sinister developments. Some cast doubt on the right to life of the newborn disabled baby, and of others who are incurably sick and old, and of those whose lives - they judge - are no longer useful to society or meaningful to themselves. Due to this we see termination of pregnancy when the foetus is abnormal, and even euthanasia are all the result of the inability to accept this suffering."

The life of Blessed Alfonsa is taking on an even greater value in India, a society where there is still a rigid separation among the castes, and the underprivileged are kept at the margins of society. "The canonization of Blessed Alfonsa," Cardinal Vithayathil concludes, "should force us to confront the grim reality upon which our success and world dominance depend - all money, power and other attractions end with death, but a live lived in holiness, in faith and lived communion with Christ, lives and continues to bear fruit even after the passing away of our mortal life."

Doctors in Ontario may be forced to go against beliefs

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) has a new draft which if implemented will be the first province in Canada to change its regulations on medical conscience.

The document outlines that doctors should place the needs of a patient first, and "there are times when it may be necessary for physicians to set aside their personal beliefs in order to ensure that patients or potential patients are provided with the medical services they require."

Ontario doctors currently are allowed to opt out of performing abortions or prescribing birth control pills if it goes against their religious or moral beliefs.

But if the new rules being proposed are approved next month, this, along with ending a doctor-patient relationship based on religious or moral conscience, might be considered professional misconduct.

I am of the opinion that this is laying the ground work for the introduction of laws relating to euthanasia in this province and then across the nation.

Also suspect is the timing of the introduction of this draft during summer when most doctors are on vacation.

For more details refer to the following LINK

Please pray that this draft does not pass especially for the few practicing Catholic doctors left in the province.