Providence is way cool!

So, I am down in the kitchen this morning, cooking up some eggs for breakfast (yep, that's one thing I can cook!), lost in thought about the latest comments on this post. I glance over to my right to see a magazine laying open on the counter. I am struck by the title of the exposed article, "Finding the Source of All True Love" and the photo of a joyful Pope Benedict XVI. The text of the article was the following excerpt from his address to youth at Westminster Cathedral on September 18:

I ask each of you, first and foremost, to look into your own heart. Think of all the love that your heart was made to receive, and all the love it is meant to give. After all, we were made for love. This is what the Bible means when it says that we are made in the image and likeness of God: we were made to know the God of love, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to find our supreme fulfillment in that divine love that knows no beginning or end.

We were made to receive love, and we have. Every day we should thank God for the love we have already known, for the love that has made us who we are, the love that has shown us what is truly important in life. We need to thank the Lord for the love we have received from our families, our friends, our teachers, and all those people in our lives who have helped us to realize how precious we are, in their eyes and in the eyes of God.

We were also made to give love, to make it the inspiration for all we do and the most enduring thing in our lives. At times this seems so natural, especially when we feel the exhilaration of love, when our hearts brim over with generosity, idealism, the desire to help others, to build a better world. But at other times we realize that it is difficult to love; our hearts can easily be hardened by selfishness, envy and pride. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the great Missionary of Charity, reminded us that giving love, pure and generous love, is the fruit of a daily decision. Every day we have to choose to love, and this requires help, the help that comes from Christ, from prayer and from the wisdom found in his word, and from the grace which he bestows on us in the sacraments of his Church.

This is the message I want to share with you today. I ask you to look into your hearts each day to find the source of all true love. Jesus is always there, quietly waiting for us to be still with him and to hear his voice. Deep within your heart, he is calling you to spend time with him in prayer. But this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline; it requires making time for moments of silence every day. Often it means waiting for the Lord to speak. Even amid the "busy-ness" and the stress of our daily lives, we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God, and in silence that we discover our true self. And in discovering our true self, we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his Church and the redemption of our world.

Heart speaks unto heart. With these words from my heart, dear young friends, I assure you of my prayers for you, that your lives will bear abundant fruit for the growth of the civilization of love. I ask you also to pray for me, for my ministry as the Successor of Peter, and for the needs of the Church throughout the world. Upon you, your families and your friends, I cordially invoke God’s blessings of wisdom, joy and peace.

Amen, dear Papa! Thanks for saying it so eloquently. :)

Is suffering worse than death? Part One.

In my quest to understand modern liberalism, I have discovered that for the secular left, the worst thing in life is suffering or potential suffering. Not sin, not evil, not even death. It is suffering that must be avoided at all costs. 

Here’s what I have seen recently that backs up my theory:

1) Peter Singer, the esteemed bioethicist at Princeton (whom I blogged about here), believes that if bearing and raising a disabled child will cause his parents to suffer, the child should be put to death, even long after birth. As he and his many supporters see it, this killing is a way to end the suffering and potential suffering of both the child and the parents:

When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the haemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.

2) We have heard from liberal bloggers again and again (commenting on this blog and their own) that it is often better for an unborn child to die by abortion than to live, due to the potential for suffering. For example, Mai said: 

Religious Right policies on abortion sound good in theory, but are a disaster when applied to real life. Take for example children born to parent(s) (often the father is absent) who are poor or unwilling to care for a child, let alone be healthy enough to maintain a healthy pregnancy.

Presumably, the "disaster" is that the child or the mother might suffer. 


And Sophie recently stated: 

I believe that abortion is the right choice in some situations, such as certain cases of teen pregnancy. Don't you agree it is better for both mother and embryo to lose the fetus and continue living as a teenager than it is to be possibly disowned, homeless, and susceptible to disease? 

The very possibility of suffering, of being disowned, homeless and susceptible to disease (a possibility in any life, mine and yours included) is enough to justify an abortion. 


3) Then there are the accusations against Mother Teresa. Until I did a little research, I had no idea that hating on Mother T. was a cottage industry among those on the secular left! The attacks echo a remark I saw this week, written by a proud abortion supporter:

I would most definitely have said [f*** you] to Mother Theresa. She was a fanatic. A marketing tool for the church, and simply a fraud. She never opposed poverty, but thought the suffering of the poor was something noble, a god-given blessing that humanity should be thankful for. She never treated the suffering patients she had in Calcutta with the millions she made, she kept them there suffering, reading fairy tales, and receiving non-professional medical assistance to keep them in their state. 

(Emphasis mine, and yes, this person went on and on some more, but I think you get the gist....)

4) Finally, many of us saw the shocking video a couple of days ago of a British advice columnist being interviewed for a TV segment called, “Can abortion be a kindness?” Be sure to watch the clip (your jaw will drop), but here’s an excerpt:  

Miss Ironside said: ‘If a baby’s going to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely an abortion is the act of a loving mother.’

She added: ‘If I were the mother of a suffering child – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face… If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would.’

I was consoled to see that the two other ladies on the set were as appalled as I was. However, Miss Ironside seemed thoroughly confused to learn that most good mothers would not smother their own suffering children.

(By the way, does anyone else see a contradiction in her assertion that a "totally unwanted" baby could have a "loving mother"? How does that work, exactly? It's sort of like if I said to my husband, "You are totally unwanted! Aren't I a loving wife?" But I digress...)

These are just a few recent examples I found with little effort. If you are skeptical that liberals really feel this way, keep your eyes and ears open. Read what those on the secular left are saying every day. Watch their news shows, read their articles and blogs. Pay special attention when they start talking about "quality of life." You will find the same theme again and again: Evil isn't the biggest evil, suffering is. Death isn't the biggest evil, suffering is. Suffering is the one thing we must not tolerate, even if it means we (or others) must die (or be killed) to avoid it.

Liberals, if I am misrepresenting you, please show me where I am wrong. You know you will be uncensored here.

And, stay tuned, because soon I will present a very different view of human suffering -- the Christian view.

Answering Sophie: Mother Teresa vs. Margaret Sanger

I want to address Sophie Fletcher's comments from yesterday's post comparing Mother Teresa and Margaret Sanger.


Sophie's comments are in red italics.


Wow. I don't mean to butt in here, but I am sensing a bit of bias against Sanger. 


Actually, you should be sensing a huge bias against Sanger here.  :)


I do have a few questions as to some of your points, Leila. I'm sorry if I word my questions bluntly--I don't mean to offend, but I haven't got much time right now and I am simply curious.


Totally fine. I love straight talk!


You say "Mother Teresa was truly humble and radiated joy" etc while Sanger was "proud, troubled selfish and never at peace." I thought both Mother Teresa and Sanger did much for others, especially the poor--Mother Teresa through her physical care, and Sanger through her distribution of contraception. 


Oh, yes, they both did a lot for others. In a way that was diametrically opposed.


Mother Teresa loved and cared for the untouchables of society, taking them out of the streets, picking maggots out of their rotted, dying flesh and giving them a clean place to lay, food to eat and water to drink, loving them till their last breath. Many of those she cared for reported that this was the first time in their lives that they had been loved, listened to, touched and cherished.


Margaret Sanger did a lot for others, too. She called for poor people, black people, immigrants and disabled to to stop reproducing themselves since they were "unfit" and "human weeds." She worked her whole life to achieve her goal of culling the herd of undesirables, all while neglecting her children and carrying on multiple adulterous affairs.


Nowadays, because so many people believe in sex before marriage, it is wiser to be prepared for it than to expect it never to happen. 


Actually, it's wiser to educate our children about self-control and human dignity. Wouldn't that serve them well? I am actually planning to do a whole post on this...


But you are right that we expect most people to have sex before marriage now, because Sanger's push for widespread contraception was successful. Contraception makes engaging in promiscuous sex much easier. Now women can take pills to make themselves sterile, giving them the freedom to be used and discarded by dozens of men over their lifetime. 


Why would Sanger have been considered selfish if she did this?


Well, when one's motive is to eliminate poor people, black people, disabled people or anyone else deemed "unfit," we may rightly call that selfish. Seeing dirty, impoverished, imperfect brown people made Maggie feel icky. Sorta like people who walk halfway around the block to avoid the homeless man lying in the street. Sharing the earth (and a common humanity) with the riff-raff makes us uncomfortable. And, yes, that is selfish.

You also say that Sanger worked for herself alone. I think we can both see that isn't true. If you think it is, please explain to me how so. 


But it is true, by her own admission. The slogan on her newsletter was "no gods, no masters" -- she said it, I didn't. Everything Maggie did was for Maggie because Maggie wanted to. She was no Mother Teresa. ;)


And although I do agree with you on the "don't-kill-unborn-children" idea, by law, a child is merely a fetus until out of the womb, at which time it becomes a baby. 


And once upon a time, a black person was not considered fully human under the law. In Nazi Germany, Jews were not protected under the law, either. Don't confuse what is legal with what is moral. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes not. My humanity doesn't depend on whether or not some lawmaker says I am human, you see?


Not sure how a fetus (which means offspring or little one) "becomes" a baby at birth. Seems like simply a location change to me. I'm willing to hear how that happens, but in the meantime you may want to check out my response to Christa regarding the science of human life and the concept of "personhood."


However, studies show that in countries where abortion was illegal and considered bad, both the amount of crime and the infant mortality rate went up exponentially. 


First, I'd have to see the studies. That is pretty vague. Second, even if crime went through the roof because babies were allowed to live, it still wouldn't justify killing the unborn. 


Abortion can only happen before a certain point in pregnancy. 


Untrue, but a common misconception (no pun intended). 


Roe v. Wade legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. It allows individual states to put restrictions on late-term abortions if they so desire, but any American woman who wants an abortion at full-term can legally attain one. She might have to travel to another state to find an abortionist willing to do it, but it's legal. Your statement is incorrect.


I believe that abortion is the right choice in some situations, such as certain cases of teen pregnancy. 


I don't doubt that you believe that. However, I imagine that if you were that child about to be dismembered and sucked out of your mother's womb, you might have a different belief. Unfortunately, the unborn don't have a voice, and they don't vote. I'm sure glad my husband's mother didn't abort him (she was a teen mom).


Don't you agree it is better for both mother and embryo to lose the fetus and continue living as a teenager than it is to be possibly disowned, homeless, and susceptible to disease? 


No, I don't agree (see my previous answer, re: my dear husband). And it doesn't make sense... how could it be "better" for the embryo to be dead rather than alive? Unless death is better than life? I've never understood the mindset that says the potential for suffering is enough to warrant an abortion. If that's the case, then we all should have been aborted, because we all suffer. Every single one of us could "possibly be disowned, homeless and susceptible to disease." No one can predict what will become of a human life. The human spirit is an amazing thing.


Please help me to understand your point of view. 



It's incredibly simple: Every human life, from the moment of conception, is intrinsically valuable and inviolable. Either we are all human, or none of us is.

(Unborn children at about eight or  nine weeks)

Two very different women

The abortion/contraception/IVF discussion over at Sew's blog today got me thinking. In the comment section, Miss Gwen brought up Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, who dedicated her life to promoting birth control.

Here's part of what Miss Gwen said to Sew:

I know you probably have much disdain for Margaret Sanger (I'm not saying she's perfect) but one of the reasons birth control came about was because of her observations and experiences in the slums of NY working amongst immigrant and poor families where complications from pregnancy and mother fatality as well as infant fatality were rampant problems. The ability to plan/anticipate for children as well as be a healthful woman was ground breaking.

Immediately, I thought of another woman who worked amongst the poor -- the poorest of the poor, in fact. The woman who chose to serve in one of the worst slums in the world, who went into the filthy streets to pick up the cast-offs dying alone in the gutter: Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Both Mother Teresa and Sanger observed the poor and saw much suffering. And yet, the two women couldn't be more different. Let me count the ways....

• Mother Teresa believed that every human life has infinite, intrinsic value and is created by a loving Father to love and be loved.
• Margaret Sanger believed that some people are "human weeds" and "unfit" and thus need to be culled. 

• Mother Teresa embraced every race of people equally as children of God.
• Margaret Sanger was a known racist whose legacy is built on the desire to limit the "reckless breeding" of black people and immigrants.

• Mother Teresa tenderly cared for the physically handicapped and mentally challenged.
• Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who advocated the elimination of those who have physical or mental problems.

• Mother Teresa was a consecrated virgin, pure of heart and totally faithful to her beloved Spouse, Jesus Christ.
• Margaret Sanger was a serial adulterer who openly proclaimed that sex for sport and pleasure trumped the marriage vow any day.

• Mother Teresa was truly humble, and she radiated joy and peace to all who came in contact with her.
• Margaret Sanger was a proud, troubled, selfish elitist who was never at peace.

• Mother Teresa's idea of a "healthful woman" is a woman whose body is working as it was designed to work. "Health" includes educating a woman on the signs of her own fertility and providing safe, sanitary conditions for childbirth. Mother Teresa knew that women are "fearfully and wonderfully made" by God, that there is nothing wrong with the way a woman's body functions, and that we don't need to be chemically neutered or surgically mutilated to be "healthy."
• Margaret Sanger's idea of a "healthful woman" is a woman on synthetic hormones/steroids which are accompanied by harmful and even deadly side effects. "Health" means derailing a working bodily function so that it does something completely unnatural and against the body's own design. In the case of sterilization, "health" means mutilating healthy organs so that they no longer work as intended.

• Every bit of Mother Teresa's care for the poor, sick and dying was done for Jesus Christ, her Beloved. Her heroic life was lived in service to God.
• Margaret Sanger worked under the slogan of "no gods, no masters." Sanger served herself alone.

• Mother Teresa's legacy is the thousands of joyful, smiling sisters in her Missionaries of Charity order who continue her work to this day, loving and caring for the poorest of the poor in 133 countries around the globe. Her legacy has blessed the lives of untold millions.
• Margaret Sanger's legacy is Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in America with tentacles all around the world. Her legacy has ended the lives of untold millions.

Mother Teresa loved the poor, Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate the poor. I don't know about you, but if I'm a poor person (or any person!), I'll cast my lot with Mother Teresa any day.

Blessed Mother Teresa, pray for us!

(Read the follow-up post here.)