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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

April 1998

-- "Divisions, Dialogue and the Catholicity of the Church," by Father Thomas Rausch, America, January 31-February 7


OF ALL THE ARGUMENTS advanced against the legalization of abortion, the one that always struck me as the most questionable is the most consequential: that the widespread acceptance of abortion would lead to a profound moral shift in our culture, a great devaluing of human life....

This time, it seems, the pessimists were right. On Sunday, Nov. 2 [1997], an article in the New York Times, the closest thing we have to the voice of the intellectual establishment, came out for killing babies. I am afraid that I am sensationalizing only slightly....

What [Steven] Pinker, a professor of psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote and what the Times treated as a legitimate argument, was a thoroughly sympathetic treatment of this modest proposal: Mothers who kill their newborn infants should not be judged as harshly as people who take human life in its later stages because newborn infants are not persons in the full sense of the word, and therefore do not enjoy a right to life. Who says life begins at birth?

-- "Arguing for Infanticide," by Michael Kelly, The Human Life Review, Winter 1998


A PROSPECTIVE SEMINARIAN should ask his vocation director where he would be sent for his priestly formation and request permission to visit the seminary to see if the seminary is orthodox in its academic and spiritual formation, and if it adheres to the Magisterium. The right choice of diocese and seminary is crucial for any heterosexual and orthodox man who feels called to the priesthood.

-- "Vocation crisis: the self-inflicted wound," by John P. Fraunces, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, March 1988


A STUDIO CITY DOCTOR with a suspended medical license has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 26-week-old fetus discovered after an abortion gone awry, officials said Friday.

Dr. Gordon Sean Goei, 57, was arrested after detectives found the fetus in a trash bag at Centro Mexico Family Planning clinic at 6900 Van Nuys Blvd., said Los Angeles police Lt. Richard Blankenship of the Van Nuys Division.

Investigators made the arrest based on the belief that the fetus could have lived outside the womb and because Goei's medical license was suspended when he did the abortion, Blankenship said....

"There's very little doubt in my mind about the viability (of the fetus)," Blankenship said....

[Goei] was being held in Van Nuys Jail in lieu of $1 million bail. [Three days later, on March 23, the murder charge was changed to illegally practicing medicine and illegally performing an abortion and bail reduced to $75,000.]...

In one case 16 years ago, Goei was found incompetent for underestimating the age of another fetus, and had to stop an abortion because its head was too large for his forceps, state records show.

-- "Valley doctor held in death of fetus," by Jesse Hiestand and Paul Hefner, Daily News, March 21, 1998


ANOTHER SIGN OF OUR MORTUARY TIMES is cited in the newsletter Life at Risk: A Chronicle of Euthanasia Trends in America. The story concerns "quality of life" attitudes in Oregon, the only state in America that has legalized assisted suicide and may well go beyond that way of accelerating death: "Oregon prosecutors have announced that no criminal charges will be brought against Dr. James D. Gallant despite his ordering a lethal injection for a terminally ill patient in 1996. The patient, Clarietta Day, was unconscious due to a burst blood vessel in her brain. She never requested euthanasia....

"The state Board of Medical Examiners suspended Gallant's license for two months....Lane County district attorney Douglas Harcleroad says that getting a jury to convict Gallant of wrongdoing would be 'very difficult' in Oregon at this time.

-- "Death's Eager Recruiters," by Nat Henthoff, Village Voice, February 24, 1998


THE CAMPAIGN STAFF FOR SEVERAL GUBERNATORIAL candidates in California said this week that repeated religious references by Republican candidate Dan Lungren has them worried that he is a religious extremist.

Lungren, currently the state attorney general, announced his candidacy this week and repeatedly cited his Catholic beliefs in his announcement speech. "If we are to be a successful people, we have to be a religious people as well," he said. He also said, "Separation of church and state doesn't mean separation of public debate and religious values," and, "I'm a Catholic. I believe in penance and redemption."

A spokesman for the Democratic candidate Al Checchi said Lungren's comments are alarming and inappropriate. Elena Stern said Lungren "is trying to mask his extremism in religion." Kam Kuwata, campaign manager for another Democratic candidate, Jane Harman, said he felt "a little queasy" about Lungren's remarks as "dangerously close to saying we need to have a state religion."

-- "Catholic References Alarm Rivals," Catholic World News dispatch, March 6, 1998


THE [POLLING] NUMBERS FOR THE [ABORTION] CATEGORIES "legal under any circumstances/legal in some situations/illegal under all circumstances" in a February 1995 USA Today/CNN/ Gallup poll were: 33%/50%/15%.

After Congress debated and passed the [partial-birth abortion ban act] and Bill Clinton vetoed it, the poll numbers in July were: 22% (always legal), 58% (legal in some situations), and 15% (always illegal) -- similar to the current numbers (Jan. 1998).

The most dramatic shift was in the "always legal" category: from 33% to 22%. It's hard to support the indefensible.

-- "Turning Point? Stay Focused on What Works," by Wanda Franz, Ph.D., National Right to Life News, February 11, 1998


QUESTION: I READ THAT THE LATIN CATECHISM (1997) somewhat corrected the Catechism's teaching on homosexuality. I have no access to the Latin; is this true?

Answer: Yes. The English translation of the Catechism (1993) now in print says in #2358: "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial" (emphasis added).

Our English version is an accurate translation of the original French: "Ils ne choisissent pas leur condition homosexuelle." The Spanish and Italian translations do the same.

However, in the now official (9/8/97) Latin Catechism there is a correction of this ambiguity. The second sentence of #2358 now reads: "Hace propensio, objective inordinata, pro majore eorum parte constituit probationem" (Catechismas Catholicae Ecclesia [1997] p. 598). "This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial" (cf. Origins 27:15 [9/25/97] p. 261).

While the first publication in French was authentic, only the Latin version is official and, where corrected, definitive. Thus, the "they do not choose their homosexual condition" has been eliminated and replaced with the "This inclination, which is objectively disordered...."

-- "Questions answered," by Msgr. William B. Smith, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, February 1998

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