Roman Catholic Blog

"Sister" Carol Keehan - Grade 3 Cancer on the body politic of Holy Mother Church

Cancer can be classified into three different grades, per www.differencebetween.com.

Grade 1 is when cancer cells look alike like normal cells. In other words these are a slow growing cell which doesn’t show much symptoms of a cancer infection. A cancer infection if identified in this stage can be cured. This is also termed as early stage.

Grade 2 is when cancer cells start to appear different from normal cells. These are fast growing cells and are in the growing stage. If proper treatment is given at this stage, the disease can be cured. A cancer if unidentified in grade 2 could be termed as a stage where hope of curing is less or rare. A complete cure if guaranteed is only during the initial stages.

Grade 3 is when cancer cells are found to be immensely growing and is in the final stages of growth. This is when, the patient feels the pain in the parts of the body where cancer cell are grown. The pain will be severe and uncontrollable.

I see Sister Keehan as a Grade 3 cancer on the body politic of Holy Mother Church.

          "What Did CHA's Carol Keehan Know and When Did She Know It?

Register news analysis: As threats to religious liberty escalate, critics say it’s time to establish who truly speaks for the Church in the United States.

BY JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND, National Catholic Register

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Feb. 10 confirmed that his administration was offering an “accommodation” to religious groups opposed to a controversial federal rule requiring private health plans to provide contraception and abortion services.

As reported in the media, church-affiliated employers would not have to directly cover those services; instead, their insurance plans would cover them.

The announcement prompted an expression of gratitude from Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, and a polite, but wary response from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which said they needed to study the proposed modification.

That evening, the bishops’ conference formally rejected the president’s “accommodation” as essentially meaningless.

For the rest of the weekend, amid a blur of news headlines and talking heads that offered conflicting judgments, the faithful in the pews struggled to determine what, if anything, had changed regarding the administration’s policy.

The contrasting responses from the CHA leader and the USCCB have left Catholics and the general public confused about who speaks for the Church on a matter of grave institutional concern and whether the Obama administration exploited a lack of clarity about that matter.

The dueling positions have fueled questions about the basis of Sister Carol’s endorsement: USCCB officials and health-care experts have since confirmed that the government has not issued any binding regulations that legally override the controversial contraception mandate finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 20.

Subsequent media coverage and interviews suggest that while the White House cleared its talking points with Sister Carol in advance of the president’s public address, the USCCB had been excluded from the administration’s deliberations.

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Who Speaks for the Church?

The confusion and possible institutional damage generated by Sister Carol’s public endorsement have led some Catholic experts in the health-care field to demand an accounting.

“On the basis of what information and what authority did she issue this endorsement? It’s embarrassing from a policy standpoint,” noted Paul Danello, an expert on civil and canon law issues in Catholic health care, who has received calls from Catholic hospitals worried about the implications of the HHS final rule.

“If the CHA board hasn’t authorized this, if she has no mandate from the USCCB, and if there are no legally binding documents, she is operating without any legal, governance or regulatory basis. That is a hell of a situation for a Roman Catholic nun that heads the Catholic Health Association to be in.”

.....

“It’s the right hand fighting against the left hand,” he said. “Who is speaking for the Church here? The Church needs to get its house in order.”"

For the full story please see:http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/what-did-catholic-health-associations-sister-carol-know-and-when-did-she-kn/

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They have eyes but they do not see...

I was sad when I read this as I enjoyed his book on the subject of time…

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Stephen Hawking: “God was not needed to create the Universe”

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded.

By Laura Roberts

Published: 6:15AM BST 02 Sep 2010

“The scientist has claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.

In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

 He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

In A Brief History of Time, Prof Hawking's most famous work, he did not dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world.

He wrote in the 1988 book: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”

In his new book he rejects Sir Isaac Newton's theory that the Universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.

In June this year Prof Hawking told a Channel 4 series that he didn't believe that a "personal" God existed. He told Genius of Britain: "The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions."

Until his retirement last year Prof Hawking was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post previously held by Newton.

The book, co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, is published on September 9.

SEE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7976594/Stephen-Hawking-God-was-not-needed-to-create-the-Universe.html

Judge Lamberth Calls Out Obama Doublespeak

August 23, 2010

 

U.S. Judge Rules Against Obama’s Stem Cell Policy

By Gardiner Harris, NYT

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge on Monday blocked President Obama’s 2009 executive order that expanded embryonic stem cell research, saying it violated a ban on federal money being used to destroy embryos.

The ruling came as a shock to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and at universities across the country, which had viewed the Obama administration’s new policy and the grants provided under it as settled law. Scientists scrambled Monday evening to assess the ruling’s immediate impact on their work.

...

In his ruling, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that his temporary injunction returned federal policy to the “status quo,” but few officials, scientists or lawyers in the case were sure Monday night what that meant.

.......

The judge ruled that the Obama administration’s policy was illegal because the administration’s distinction between work that leads to the destruction of embryos — which cannot be financed by the federal government under the current policy — and the financing of work using stem cells created through embryonic destruction was meaningless. In his ruling, he referred to embryonic stem cell research as E.S.C.

“If one step or ‘piece of research’ of an E.S.C. research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding,” wrote Judge Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.

In other words, the neat lines that the government had drawn between the process of embryonic destruction and the results of that destruction are not valid, the judge ruled.

......

“We do not want to see stem cell research that would destroy embryos,” Mr. Stoddart said. “Embryos are preborn human life that should be protected and not destroyed. If there was a way of extracting the stem cells without destroying them, I would not be opposed to it.”

Mr. Stoddart said he would be surprised if the judge’s ruling led to a complete ban on embryonic stem cell research. Rather, he said his group hoped the government’s policy would return to the balance struck by President Bush.

For the full article see: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/health/policy/24stem.html

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Someone should call Congressman Bart "Backslider" Stupak and tell him that the Obama language in the Healthcare Bill regarding abortion is about as valuable as the Obama language Judge lamberth has defined as "meaningless."

Luigi Garlaschelli “shrouds” his motives…

 {Hat Tip to Judge Sam}

 

There’s a buzz on the Net about a new report by Luigi Garlaschelli (pic above), professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia in Italy. In brevis, he claims that because he has been able in 2009 to create a facsimile of the Shroud of Turin using materials available in the Middle Ages, that the actual shroud is a fake made in the Middle Ages.

Clearly the forgery of relics was prevalent in the Middle Ages. Even the Canterbury Tales has the Pardoner quip:

“And stir men to devotion, marveling.

Then show I forth my hollow crystal-stones,

Which are crammed full of rags, aye, and of bones;

Relics are these, as they think, every one.

Then I've in latten box a shoulder bone

Which came out of a holy Hebrew's sheep.”

Nonetheless, Garlaschelli's logic is unbelievably flawed. His ability to produce a facsimile of the Shroud using medieval materials does not mean that the Shroud itself was so produced.

 

What I question is – what it Garlaschelli's motive?

 

“Garlaschelli received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results.”

 

Well, perhaps we could look to his PAST actions to ferret out his motivations?

 

Here he is “creating” a stigmata, unbelievably for National Geographic Magazine.

 

 

 

 

And here he is “creating” his own version of the annual Miracle of San Gennaro.

 

 

 

And here is his version of a statue that “cries” blood.

 

 

 

 

So he is funded by agnostics and atheists, and regularly “questions” supernatural phenomena that are associated with the Catholic Church in Italy.

Why?

All Saturday Night Live kidding aside, I don't know if the particular phenomena Prof. Garlaschelli has "gone after" are true. (Personally - I do believe that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Christ).

What I can tell you categorically is not true, what is false, is the notion that "science" can be dispositive on everything.

G*d Himself understood that inherent in the power to name or classify is the power to control. G*d had Adam name the animals for this reason,

and most explicitly He responded to Moses' question with "I am who am," for this same reason.

Your Thoughts?

Viewing Mankind as the Problem.

From www.telegraph.co.uk

'Contraception cheapest way to

combat climate change'

Contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies, according to research by the London School of Economics.

By Richard Pindar

Published: 12:05PM BST 09 Sep 2009

"Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says.

The report, Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended.

If these basic family planning needs were met, 34 gigatons (billion tonnes) of CO2 would be saved – equivalent to nearly 6 times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK's annual total.

Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust at the LSE, said: “It’s always been obviously that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions – the carbon tonnage can’t shoot down as we want, while the population keeps shooting up.”

UN data suggests that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 million.

The research is published on the day that the Government’s climate change advisers, the Climate Change Committee, warned households and industry that a planned 80 per cent reduction in emissions are likely to prove insufficient."

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From Thomas Malthus in 1798 to Paul Ehlrich in 1968 to the enviro-wackos of today, human beings are the problem. The 1960's and 1970's cry that the earth's resources would not support population growth, now proven false, is being replaced by an "anti-human" carbon argument.

What will they think of next?

Twitter Immoral?

see; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169788/Twitter-make-immoral-claim-scientists.html?printingPage=true

Twitter can make you

immoral,

claim scientists

By Jenny Hope, UK Daily Mail

14th April 2009

"Social networks such as Twitter may blunt people's sense of morality, claim brain scientists.

New evidence shows the digital torrent of information from networking sites could have long-term damaging effects on the emotional development of young people's brains.

A study suggests rapid-fire news updates and instant social interaction are too fast for the 'moral compass' of the brain to process.

The danger is that heavy Twitters and Facebook users could become 'indifferent to human suffering' because they never get time to reflect and fully experience emotions about other people's feelings.

US scientists from the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California (USC) say the brain can respond in fractions of seconds to signs of physical pain in others.

But they show it takes longer to activate processing of social emotions such as admiration and compassion, which are critical for developing a sense of morality.

The study raises questions about the emotional cost of heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news snippets obtained through television, online feeds or social networks such as Twitter.

The impact could be most damaging for youngsters whose brains are still developing.

USC researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang said 'For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people's social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and reflection.

'If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality.'

Mature celebrity users of Twitter such as Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand are behind the growing popularity of the site used by around 10 million people worldwide.

Barack Obama used it as a tool during last year's US presidential elections to talk directly and quickly - only 140 characters can be posted at any time by website or mobile phone - to thousands of followers.

But a new study led by Antonio Damasio, director of the USC's Brain and Creativity Institute, suggests that digital media may be better suited to some mental processes than others.

The study used compelling, real-life stories to induce admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain, in 13 volunteers.

The emotions felt were verified by researchers in a series of interviews before and after, conducted using a careful protocol.

Brain imaging showed the volunteers needed six to eight seconds to fully respond to stories of virtue or social pain.

However, once awakened, the responses lasted far longer than the volunteers' reactions to stories focused on physical pain.

The study will appear next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition.

Manuel Castells, holder of the Wallis Annenberg Chair of Communication Technology and Society at USC, said 'Damasio's study has extraordinary implications for the human perception of events in a digital communication environment.

'Lasting compassion in relationship to psychological suffering requires a level of persistent, emotional attention.'

'In a media culture in which violence and suffering becomes an endless show, be it in fiction or in infotainment, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in.'

Although normal life events provide opportunities to feel admiration and compassion, the researchers fear heavy social networkers may not have time for traditional ways of developing a moral sense such as reading books and seeing friends.

The study showed physical and social pain both engage the posteromedial cortex, the region of brain related to the sense of self and consciousness, but in different areas.

Professor Damasio said 'The brain is honouring a distinction between things that have to do with physicality and things that have to do with the mind.

'When it comes to emotion, because these systems are inherently slow, perhaps all we can say is, not so fast.'

He said humans 'separate the good from the bad' largely thanks to the feeling of admiration.

It is also deeply rooted in the brain and the sense of the body, the study found, engaging primal neural systems that regulate blood chemistry, the digestive system and other parts of the body.

Prof Damasio called it proof, pending replication of the findings, that social emotions have deep evolutionary roots.

He said 'People generally don't think of emotions like admiration and compassion as having forerunners in evolution.

'We reveal that these emotions engage the basic systems of our physiology.'"

The Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California website is: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/bci/

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I find this article intriguing. Obviously anything can be used for an evil end. The Internet, on which this blog resides, can be a conduit for filth that rivals the cloaca maxima!

Ominous Introit

From President Obama's just finished Inaugural speech.

"We will return science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders..."

He was more explicit on December 20, 2008 when he said :

"Whether it’s the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake our industries and create twenty-first century jobs—today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation...."

"Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work."

Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but when I hear "science" in these absolute contexts, I immediately think of the threat to "life."