When Bishops embrace politics over pastoring

In January 2019, the diocese of Covington Kentucky, under direction of Archbishop Roger Joseph Foys, issued a condemnation one day after a viral video appeared to show high school boys harassing an older man at the March for Life in Washington. The archdiocese called the students' behavior "opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person" and issued an apology to the actual aggressor. The media had already politicized the issue, emphasizing race, and showing only a specious snippet of video that belied the story. The light-speed reaction of the archdiocese has left them embarrassed as subsequent footage of the incident revealed the older man to have been the aggressor. Even though the archdiocese openly condemned the students absent of further investigation, their most recent statement said it is "important for us to gather the facts that will allow us to determine what corrective actions, if any, are appropriate." Lexington Bishop Stowe originally called the students a, "contradiction of the very reverence for human life that the march is supposed to manifest." Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz tweeted a condemnation of what he claimed were "the shameful actions of the Covington Catholic High School students." Other bishops made similar premature condemnations. They wittingly or not worked in concert with an unethical media, hostile to the Church and the pro-life movement. And, once again, they showed themselves perfectly capable of crying out in unison when politically popular, but painfully mute when needing to champion unpopular, but true, teachings of the faith.

In February 2018, Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich responded in a week to publicly condemn and sanction a priest who burned a flag promoting homosexuality that once hung in his parish. Meanwhile, after two priests in Cupich's archdiocese were arrested for committing a public sexual act with each other, Cupich said he would wait for an investigation. Neither originally, nor over four months later, has any public condemnation come from Cupich. Cupich is also the Archbishop who responded within 48 hours to the first Viganó letter about clergy abuse by say saying the Pope should focus on "other things" and that addressing the letter was to go down a "rabbit hole." Vexingly, the Pope still appointed Cupich to the organizing committee of the February abuse synod.

In June 2018, news media drew attention to the temporary separation of family members crossing the southern U.S. border while screening occurred. Although these detainments were temporary and complicated by such matters as child sex traffickers often posing as a child's parents, multiple bishops, in a unified, simultaneous voice, condemned the policy in the harshest language. Tucson Bishop Edward Weisenburger referred to the practice "In light of the canonical penalties that are there for life issues" and suggested the hierarchy consider "canonical penalties for Catholics who are involved in this". San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller said, "To steal children from their parents is a grave sin, immoral (and) evil."  Brownsville Archbishop Daniel Flores said, "separating immigrant parents and children as a supposed deterrent to immigration is a cruel and reprehensible policy." Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron said, "The forced separation of children from their parents, which is underway now at our southern border, is an unconscionable violation of human dignity." Chicago Archbishop Cupich also spoke out immediately (He did not wait for further investigation as with his priests in Feb. 2018), stating the policy was "nothing remotely Christian, American, or (sic) morally defensible..." These are just a small sample. But whatever one thinks of these detainment policies (the policy was since deauthorized), if the bishops were truly concerned about damage to families, where is their massive condemnation about ongoing issues that are destroying legions of families, in numbers no border detainments will ever approach? Where are the bishops' unified and sobering statements about family destroyers such as divorce, cohabitation, pre-marital sex, or contraception? These things have created a hemorrhage of destruction in the institution of the family. Obviously, the bishops have shown they have the ability to issue strong condemnations in a unified voice. Why not conduct a communication blitz on these other matters instead of something politically charged that does not even constitute objective immorality?

Jesus Chasing the Merchants from the Temple by Quentin Matsys, 16th cent.
Public domain image acquired from Wikimedia Commons.

These incidents are some among many examples. Meanwhile, scandals among the hierarchy themselves persist. The faithful are left vexed. Stories of infiltration abound. Neither Pope Francis nor any other named bishops have been able to rebut the content of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó's letters detailing cover-up of sexual deviance within the Church. Pope Francis has neither replied to the 2016 dubia issued by four cardinals on the matter of Communion. Stories of priests teaching heterodoxy from the pulpit persist. Bishops consistently react fast when making popular political condemnations, but react glacially slow or altogether silently when upholding Church teaching or when condemning ills coming from their own ranks. The current state of bishops is unacceptable.

What are the faithful to do? Foremost, there is prayer. Another consideration some Catholics have suggested is withholding Sunday giving in favor of other faithful Catholic and non-profit organizations. In this scenario, dioceses are withheld funds until the true doctrines of the faith are promoted and opponents from within the Church are silenced or expelled. However, there is opposition to that view, such as from Catholic radio host Al Kresta from November 2018. Phillip Lawler, who has been instrumental in journaling scandal within the Church, also has suggestions in his recent book, The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful...and What Can Be Done About It.

---

Further resources:
Divorce Hurts Children, Even Grown Ones, Psychology Today (2011)
Unprotected movie, Don Johnson Evangelistic Ministries (2018)
Children falling short in school? Blame parental break-ups, Nicole M. King and Bryce J. Christensen (2018)
Kresta in the Afternoon, Jan. 25, 2019, hour 1, interview with Phil Lawler (on Covington Catholic incident)
The Patrick Madrid Show, Jan. 21, 2019, hour 1 (on Covington Catholic incident)

Thoughts on Gosnell film

Dean Cain in Gosnell
(production still from gosnellmovie.com/press)

Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer is one of the most important films in recent years. It is an engaging, well-paced crime drama that sheds overdue light on the nature of the abortion industry and the government and media powers that protect it.

ABORTION COVERUP
Perhaps the scariest moment in the Gosnell movie is when one realizes how protected the abortion industry is. During a scene depicting pretrial questioning, a state official shrugs at the fact that the state of Pennsylvania neglected to properly vet abortion businesses.

In the actual case, Pennsylvania health department official Janet Staloski testified that health department attorneys "changed their legal opinions and advice to suit the policy preferences of different governors" and that the state didn't want to be "putting a barrier up to women" seeking abortions.

The lack of media interest in the case likewise reveals the propagandist quality of the abortion industry. Whether from government or media, such propagandists have proven reluctant to even discuss abortion's true nature.

The actual Gosnell Grand Jury report filed in 2011 goes on for over 60 pages detailing how the Pennsylvania Department of Health woefully permitted unsafe medical conditions to persist at abortion offices. Gosnell's office, as the movie reiterated, went uninspected at one point for a span of 17 years.

That section of the report begins:

We discovered that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical service providers. Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety. 

The film moves along at a decent pace, beginning with investigators discovering illegal prescription drug activity from Gosnell's office. The abortion horrors transpiring there might not otherwise ever have been exposed if not for the state following the drug leads.

It is a fascinating watch, especially for those interested in true crime, courtroom drama, and police investigation. Ed Morrissey, senior editor at Hot Air and regular guest host on Relevant Radio, reviews some of the other accurate attributes of Gosnell here.

Although the subject matter largely revolves around abortion, the movie is not graphic. Evening television depicts far more gruesome imagery than can be seen in Gosnell. That brings me to Baby Boy A.

BABY BOY A
Baby Boy A was born alive and subsequently murdered by Gosnell. "[T]he doctor just slit the neck," testified Kareem Cross, an assistant at Gosnell's office. A photo of the baby factored into Gosnell's guilt. Gruesome details of Baby Boy A's fate are given in the Grand Jury Report beginning on page 100. Cross was asked why she took the picture of this boy Gosnell killed. Cross testified:

Because it was big and it was wrong and we knew it. We knew something was wrong. ... I’m not sure who took the picture first, but when we seen this baby, it was – it was a shock to us because I never seen a baby that big that he had done. So it was – I knew something was wrong because everything, like you can see everything, the hair, eyes, everything. And I never seen for any other procedure that he did, I never seen any like that.

Below is a screencap of Baby Boy A from the Grand Jury Report.

I asked film director and star Nick Searcy via Twitter why the photo was not shown in the movie. He graciously replied: "Because we have good taste and discernment."

While I respect that decision and the audiences Gosnell had to consider, I would like to have seen the photo in the film. Granted, the film's epilogue does refer the viewer to the Gosnell film website to see the photo.

The issue brings to mind the question of whether or not to show images of aborted babies. For example, images are shown by the Pro-Life Action League's "Face the Truth" tours. Pro-life theology professor Dr. Monica Miller argues photos expose the truth of abortion's atrocity in a way non-visual communication cannot. In 2013, not long after the Gosnell trial, she was interviewed on the Kresta in the Afternoon show on the topic Graphic Images: An Apologia (written form of her arguments can be also read at Pro-Life Action League).  In the case of Baby Boy A, I do not find the photo that graphic. It is a photo of a newborn. I would like to have seen the image in the movie, if even by way of a long camera shot. To include the photo in the film seems consistent with the unmasking theme of the film itself. The matter also reminds me of the graphic nature of The Passion of the Christ (2004). Although many criticized the brutality in that film, many others argued for the necessity of depicting the violence. And the Baby Boy A image is far more benign than what is depicted in The Passion.

GOSNELL EVEN WORSE THAN FILM REVEALS
Depicting all of Gosnell's crimes could probably fill multiple television seasons. The Gosnell film focuses largely on the investigation and parts of the trial, including Baby Boy A and the death of Karnamaya Mongar. However, his gruesome legacy went much further. As the film mentioned, Gosnell's atrocities go back at least to the early 1970s in which he participated in an experimental abortion technique that badly damaged many women's insides.

The Grand Jury Report goes on for hundreds of pages about his improprieties, including especially disturbing accounts beginning on page 6 under the subhead "Butcher of women."

For example, Gosnell tore the cervix and colon of one woman, prevented relatives from getting to her, and only let them in once they threatened to call police. The victim was brought to a hospital and had to have a portion of her intestine removed. Multiple other stories in the report tell of similar horror.

SUMMARY
All in all, this is a gripping film full of accurate details on one of the most important issues of our time. Not to be lost is awareness of the collaborative effort by government and media in facilitating Gosnell's crimes in the name of abortion. It is an eye-opening account to anyone unfamiliar with the abortion industry and the schemes that hide its true horrors.

Analysis of Pope Francis on death penalty in modern society

In a rescript of the Catechism on the death penalty, Pope Francis approved new language that concludes with the statement:

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide. (new CCC#2267)

Many on social media and elsewhere are confused and wondering if Francis has contradicted prior Church teaching. Others are far more concerned about the apparent exposure of widespread homosexuality within the global clergy or bishops wanting to give Communion to non-Catholics. And, Pope Francis himself is not known for his effective communication as we have seen multiple times in which the faithful find themselves confused after his comments. (Multiple articles have been written about confusion and he still has yet to respond to a Dubia from 5 Cardinals who asked for clarification on Amortis Laetitia). Mass media is not always accurate or forthcoming, as we have also seen. Thus, let's have a quick look at more background on this Catechism change.

The prior version of the Catechism 2267 read in part:

 the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty ... the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent." (prior CCC#2267)

As you can see, even the prior language of the Catechism treats the death penalty as an extremely rare method of recourse.

So is Francis absolutizing the idea that the death penalty has always been "wrong," or never could be acceptable in the future? This story broke only today, but my initial analysis is no. I think a very fair interpretation of the new text renders this teaching as within the realm of pastoral law as opposed to moral law.

Judith and Holofernes (fresco detail, Sistine Chapel),
Michelangelo, 1509. Acquired from Wikimedia Commons.

Consistent references to modern means
Leading up to Francis' new language in the Catechism is the earlier part of the new paragraph:

[M]ore effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens... (new CCC#2267)

The prior version of the Catechism similarly referred to modern methods of detainment:

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime... (prior CCC#2267)

A letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was also sent to the bishops explaining the new Catechism language. It claims the language is a development of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In quoting each of these two papal predecessors, we again see an appeal to modernity:

"Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform." (quoting John Paul II) 

"[T]he substantive progress made in conforming penal law ... to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order." (quoting Pope Benedict XVI)

In all four main citations in the matter—Francis' new Catechism language, prior Catechism language, and quotes from both John Paul II and Benedict XVI—there is an appeal to modern society's ability to effectively police and protect the public without using the death penalty. (Others have already made similar observations, including Francis author Ross Douthat or Fr. Alek Schrenk, STL in Patristics)

Significance of the term "inadmissible"
Thus, I think it is significant that Pope Francis did not use a morally theological term such as "intrinsic evil" or "objective evil" when describing the death penalty as meted by the State. It is true that the final paragraph in Pope Francis' new Catechism language appeals to the dignity of the human person. However, so did the previous Catechism. And, certainly, the prior two Popes offered much in the way of teaching on human dignity. All prior aversion to the death penalty in the Church was indeed based on the reality of human dignity.

But, refer to other unchanged paragraphs in the Catechism, such as an earlier excerpt on self-defense:

Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow. (CCC#2264)

Similarly, the Catechism addresses the concept of "just war" which could involve killing of others (CCC#2308ff).  If one killed another in self-defense or as a soldier in a just war, that would not mean the deceased did not have human dignity. So, the Catechism is not contradicting the idea of human dignity by not attributing the crime of murder, per se, if it involves a grave situation like self-defense or just war.

Therefore, the prior Catechism, in granting the possibility of the use of the death penalty, even if extremely rare, demonstrates that the death penalty, per se, is not automatically evil. And, the new Catechism paragraph repeats the appeal to how modern and "[m]ore effective systems of detention have been developed." In doing so, the new Catechism language attaches the idea of an "inadmissible" death penalty to a society's ability to avoid it, for the sake of human dignity.

We cannot argue, ex post facto, that prior societies, particularly in ancient times, were necessarily "wrong" to employ a death penalty. Neither does the language of the new Catechism paragraph eliminate the possibility of a future society needing recourse to a "death penalty" because it lacks the  "means" to protect the people without it. One could posit such a situation in war zones where containment options are absent. One could similarly imagine a science fiction scenario in a post-apocalyptic world, where resources are minimal and technology is destroyed. Or, one could hypothesize that there even today might exist a yet undiscovered society in remote lands, who haven't effective resources to contain a dangerous murderer. Such a society might be steeped in "immodernity" that would not fall under the context of the new Catechism language.

I do not believe one can fairly interpret the new Catechism paragraph on the death penalty as an "absolute" moral truth in all places in all times. To do so would be to render meaningless its own preceding sentences appealing to modern "development" of "systems of detention." To do so would also render moot the same appeal in all three of the other key citations behind this linguistic development.

This new appeal on the "inadmissibility" of the death penalty is, in its own words, built not only on the notion of human dignity, but on the current situation, on modern society's resources and technologies of criminal containment. The notion of the death penalty's "inadmissibility" in this new context is thus not a dogmatic comment about objective morality but more closely resembling pastoral law in light of modern resources.

Other recommended reading:
Pope Francis and the death penalty: another dose of confusion by Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture
Tweet thread on Pope Francis and death penalty language change by Ross Douthat

"Birth Control" is not medicine

On October 13, 2017, the federal government issued an interim rule which exempts religious entities from paying for objectionable services as part of their insurance plans. These include:

(FDA)-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures ... [including] certain drugs and devices that may not only prevent conception (fertilization), but may also prevent implantation of an embryo ... that many persons and organizations believe are abortifacient.

See here for several prior TCV blog posts about this issue.

WHAT IS MEDICINE?
Responding to this interim rule, Hillary Clinton tweeted: "Rolling back no-copay birth control shows a blatant disregard for medicine, science, & every woman's right to make her own health decisions."

Planned Parenthood, which is pacing at about 300,000 abortion victims per year, also responded. Their president, Cecile Richards, issued a statement saying exemptions for "birth control coverage" are an "attack on basic health care."

Many other celebrities and non-celebrities upset by the rule echoed similar sentiments.

But medicine is designed to fix an affliction of the body. Medicine's end goal is a body that functions properly. For example, medical remedies can come in the form of pills that directly fix a bodily problem such as antibiotics that attack or prevent bacterial infections. Medical remedies can come in the form of a surgery to repair a broken limb or remove a cancerous mass—any necessary part of that surgery could be considered medical care.

Birth control is not medicine. In fact, birth control's end goal is to cause a properly functioning body to malfunction.

One might try to argue something like anesthesia is not medicine, since, for example, it temporarily causes the patient the inability to feel—a malfunction of the body. However, this is only done as part of a larger goal of correcting the body. Body malfunction is not the end goal of using anesthesia. Something like an incision is similar. The ultimate goal isn't to scar a patient, but it can be necessary to ultimately treat the affliction. Contrary to these, the end goal of birth control is body malfunction.

In the case of oral contraceptives, an otherwise properly functioning ovulation cycle is stifled. Other oral contraceptives thicken an otherwise fertile uterine wall, preventing implantation of a zygote, thus killing it. Generally speaking, these are all forms of sterilization—which is a field of disease in itself. This is the product we are told must be covered by medical insurance. Forget for a moment any religious beliefs behind objections to the original mandate. Requiring insurance coverage of birth control can be opposed on medical grounds alone—specifically that birth control is not medicine.

In the earliest stages of this birth control/insurance matter, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo wrote on behalf of the U.S. bishops: "[P]regnancy is not a disease." 

In response to this latest rule, Lila Rose, president of Live Action, defended this concept in a tweet:

Abortifacient drugs are the antithesis of "healthcare." Medicine is meant to heal, not kill.

Abortifacient drugs are the antithesis of "healthcare." Medicine is meant to heal, not kill. https://t.co/Xx2XKP3TYp

— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) October 6, 2017

And she is exactly right. Medicine is meant to heal.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER USES FOR CONTRACEPTIVES?
As in 2012, objectors immediately pointed out that some contraceptives can be used to regulate cycles or alleviate pains. However, in such cases, the product would not properly be called "birth control" because the drug is not used to prevent birth. Recall in 2012, Bishop Lori, speaking before congress, explained how the same medications typically used for birth control could possibly have other uses:

Blake Farenthold - The Catholic Church does not have a problem with contraceptives for medical purposes. So I would assume from that it wouldn't be morally objectionable to the Church to pay for those for medical purposes. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, I'm just trying to make sure I understand where the Church stands. 

Bishop Lori - That would be my understanding also.

And:

Bishop Lori - I think Catholic moral theology is very nuanced. It recognizes that the same drug can operate in different ways and accomplish different things. If it is used to prevent birth, it is against our teaching.

The Bishop's principle can be seen in action, for example, at the University of Notre Dame's human resources page:

[U]nder the university’s plan, you cannot receive reimbursement for oral contraceptives, contraceptive devices or contraceptive implants, except when specifically requested by a physician based on medical necessity and for purposes other than contraception.

Insurance companies have made similar distinctions with other drugs. For example, Finasteride can be used to treat enlarged prostates but also to treat hair loss. The latter is considered cosmetic and insurance companies are not required to cover the drug in such cases.

Nevertheless, the original HHS Mandate made no distinction regarding coverage of contraceptive products. Contraceptives were required for medicinal as well as anti-medicinal purposes. The Church and other entities object to the anti-medicinal use of contraceptives, i.e. birth control.

WHAT ABOUT VIAGRA?
You may have seen in reaction to this latest rule cries that requiring coverage for Viagra is hypocritical or misogynistic. For instance, NARAL, a vocal pro-abortion group, tweeted: "In case you were wondering, bosses can’t “opt out” of paying for Viagra." 

But what is the obvious failure of intellect in that statement? Viagra, which treats erectile dysfunction, is designed to correct a body malfunction. And, again, birth control, is designed to cause body malfunction. If NARAL and their peers were serious about finding a valid parallel, they would argue that something like OTC skin ointment should be covered since it is designed to fix a bodily affliction or mouthwash which is designed to prevent poor hygiene.

I should note, for the purposes of this blog post, I'm not arguing whether or not any drug/treatment should be "required" in medical insurance policies. Certainly there are reasonable discussions that could be had regarding coverage of only major medical expenses or to give market forces a greater voice in shaping insurance policies. The purpose of this post is focused on birth control and the nature of medicine.

OUR LADY'S INVOLVEMENT?
You might have noticed at the beginning that this interim rule was issued on October 13, 2017, the 100th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady at Fatima and the Miracle of the Sun. One of the central figures in this contraceptive case was the Little Sisters of the Poor who would have incurred severe fines under the original mandate had they not paid for birth control for someone else. Other religious entities faced similar burdens. Many prayers on this matter have occurred over the past 5 years. Participation in birth control, sterilizations, and chemical abortions are clearly a moral offense in the eyes of the faithful. This is why the matter of conscious rights took a prevalent position in this discussion. We saw in a previous TCV article the amazing rescue of Chilean miners on October 13, 2010. Might Our Lady have interceded for the faithful and little ones, to protect their consciences, lives, and souls?

Reactions to CO Planned Parenthood shooting reactions

EDIT 12/2/15 to add: Witnesses, among others, apparently say the CO shooter initiated his violent actions outside Planned Parenthood and closer to a bank down the road. This contradicts the media's central narrative on this story. In the Nov. 29 Examiner, we read: "the Public Information Officer for the Colorado Springs Police Department 'told reporters that the entire incident started with shooting at the Planned Parenthood facility;' multiple reports conflict with this narrative, including accounts from eye witnesses." For the purposes of the blog post below, the sentiments remains the same, as they are a reaction to reactions about pro-lifers in relation to this tragedy. 

On Friday, November 27, 2015 a man entered a Colorado Planned Parenthood, shooting and killing three and wounding several others. We immediately saw a multitude of pro-life supporters and Christians condemn the act and pray for the victims and against future violence. See here for just a handful of examples.

Also immediately came a geyser of Planned Parenthood and abortion supporters on social media and elsewhere accusing the pro-life movement for causing this act. For instance:

Site Of Planned Parenthood Attack Is A Hub For Anti-Abortion Christians- so not surprised this happened there... ––Martina Navratilova, former professional tennis star and pro-abortion activist, Twitter post on November 29, 2015)

Perhaps Navratilova is unaware that for decades Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide have been the site of Christians praying against abortion, day after day, year after year, and yet violence is all but non-existent.

Another example:

Carly Fiorina and every single one of them has blood on their hands this morning. And these idiots that put out these deceptive videos in the first place... Yeah, it's because of them. … These videos are complete bull---. You get lunatics like this all ginned up. "Oh, they're selling baby parts, and blah blah blah blah…" ––Stephanie Miller, pro-abortion radio host, on her November 30, 2015 show.*

Common folk likewise expressed similar sentiments, often suggesting that pro-life rhetoric is responsible for the shooting. In social posts, the terms "Christian," "hypocrites," and "Planned Parenthood" are often assembled to suggest Christians condone this act.

And, as evidenced by Miller's rant above, often, The Center for Medical Progress is specifically brandished the culprit. The murders occurred "because of them," Miller indicted.

But what is the 800-lb gorilla in the room about these bold accusations against The Center for Medical Progress and other pro-lifers? The avoided questions are such as these: Is what they say true? Does abortion take a human life? Does Planned Parenthood kill enwombed babies and sell their body parts?

In the case of The Center for Medical Progress, what we have is not so much what The Center has said, but what they have revealed Planned Parenthood's own management and affiliates to have said. For example:

We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part. I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact. ––Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Senior Director for Medical Services, Planned Parenthood

On liver tissue, because that's such an area of demand for us. ... As you probably know, one of the issues with neural tissue, it's so fragile. It's insanely fragile...it's the hardest thing in the world to ship. ... [T]hey don't want to know where it comes from. I can see that. Where they're like, "We need limbs, but no hands and feet need to be attached." ... Or they want long bones, and they want you to take it all off, like make it so that we don't know what it is. ––Cate Dyer, StemExpress CEO

If we want to pursue this, mutually, I'll talk to Ian and see how he feels about using a less crunchy technique to get more whole specimens. ... When we first started this program, we had a situation, a policy that she would call the day before and how many ten-weekers do you have. She wouldn't come in unless we had a chance for getting tissue that day. ––Dr. Mary Gatter, President, Medical Directors' Council, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Medical Director, Planned Parenthood Pasadena & San Gabriel Valley

We've just been working with people who want particular tissues. Like, a, you know, cardia–– they want cardiac, or they want eyes, or they want neural. ... oh, gonads. Oh my god, gonads. ––Dr. Carolyn Westhoof, Senior Medical Advisor, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

These quotes are, sadly, a small sample and can be found among others at The Center for Medical Progress' Investigative Footage page in video and transcript. And these don't even include the procedural improprieties nor the visual evidence exposed in the videos. Pro-lifers don't have to say Planned Parenthood sells body parts. Planned Parenthood is saying it themselves.

So where does that leave us? Essentially, devout PP supporters are saying, "If The Center for Medical Progress hadn't exposed Planned Parenthood's management admitting to selling babys' body parts, no one would be upset with them!"

Perhaps a final example may help put this in perspective. Imagine a brothel consisting of victims of the sex slave trade. An undercover video exposes the evils occurring within its walls. Then an unstable individual enters the brothel and goes on a murderous rampage, killing several, including police staff on the scene. Would we turn a blind eye to the women and children victimized in the brothel? Would the killer's actions erase or nullify what had happened and what will continue to happen to the women and children victimized in the brothel? Would we focus blame on the undercover videographer for exposing what happened there? It would be irrational to do so.

Being both opposed to the murder of adults and the murder of babies doesn't make one a hypocrite. It's nonsensical to suggest otherwise. Nonsensical, emotional, irrational rants on social media are one of the hallmarks of our time.  The Christian needn't let another's mad ravings define him/her.




*Attempts to discredit the content of The Center for Medical Progress' videos based on the videos being "edited" are hardly honest, particularly when an accusation is never paired with examples. Lengthy segments of the Planned Parenthood representatives proceed unedited. The words they spoke are in context. Readers can see the videos or transcripts for themselves. Even the Fiorina accusation, mentioned in the above quote by Miller, is an embarrassing attempt to cloak what actually occurs at Planned Parenthood clinics. Essentially, PP supporters reacted to her comments by insisting the baby she described was different than the one whose brain was actually procured. See a breakdown of that matter here.

Analysis of Planned Parenthood baby body parts scandal

THE VIDEO
Recently, the Center for Medical Progress released an investigation into Planned Parenthood, provider of approximately one-third of abortions in the United States. Undercover video footage features correspondence between Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Nucatola speaks with men posing as potential buyers of infant body parts for the purposes of medical research.

Excerpts from Nucatola garnering attention include:

Nucatola: I think every provider has had patients who want to donate their tissue, and they absolutely want to accommodate them. They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as, ‘This clinic is selling tissue, this clinic is making money off of this.’ I know in the Planned Parenthood world they’re very very sensitive to that. And before an affiliate is gonna do that, they need to, obviously, they’re not—some might do it for free—but they want to come to a number that doesn’t look like they’re making money. They want to come to a number that looks like it is a reasonable number for the effort that is allotted on their part. I think with private providers, private clinics, they’ll have much less of a problem with that. 

Buyer: Okay, so, when you are, or the affiliate is determining what that monetary—so that it doesn’t create, raising a question of this is what it’s about, this is the main—what price range, would you—? 

Nucatola: You know, I would throw a number out, I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100 [per specimen], depending on the facility and what’s involved. It just has to do with space issues, are you sending someone there who’s going to be doing everything, is there shipping involved, is somebody gonna have to take it out. You know, I think everybody just wants, it’s really just about if anyone were ever to ask them, “What do you do for this $60? How can you justify that? Or are you basically just doing something completely egregious, that you should be doing for free.” So it just needs to be justifiable. 

And later, in the interview, Nucatola explains methods of abortion used to accommodate a body part buyer's request:

Buyer: We need liver and we prefer, you know, an actual liver, not a bunch of shredded up— 

Nucatola: Piece of liver. 

Buyer: Yeah. Or especially brain is where it’s actually a big issue, hemispheres need to be intact, it’s a big deal with neural tissue and the progenitors, because those are particularly fragile. If you’ve got that in the back of your mind, if you’re aware of that, technically, how much of a difference can that actually make if you know kind of what’s expected or what we need, versus— 

PP: It makes a huge difference. I’d say a lot of people want liver. And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps. The kind of rate-limiting step of the procedure is the calvarium, the head is basically the biggest part. Most of the other stuff can come out intact. It’s very rare to have a patient that doesn’t have enough dilation to evacuate all the other parts intact.

Buyer: To bring the body cavity out intact and all that? 

Nucatola: Exactly. So then you’re just kind of cognizant of where you put your graspers, you try to intentionally go above and below the thorax, so that, you know, we’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m going to basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact. And with the calvarium, in general, some people will actually try to change the presentation so that it’s not vertex, because when it’s vertex presentation, you never have enough dilation at the beginning of the case, unless you have real, huge amount of dilation to deliver an intact calvarium. So if you do it starting from the breech presentation, there’s dilation that happens as the case goes on, and often, the last, you can evacuate an intact calvarium at the end. So I mean there are certainly steps that can be taken to try to ensure— 

Buyer: So they can convert to breach, for example, at the start of the—” 

Nucatola: Exactly, exactly. Under ultrasound guidance, they can just change the presentation.

LEGALITY
One of the first questions that comes to mind, what are the ramifications of this matter according to U.S. law? Peter Jesserer Smith, writing for the National Catholic Register, responds to Nucatola's descriptions as such: "much of it may actually be legal." The possibility of legally selling baby body parts concerns the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 which states:

It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce. (498b)

The phrase "valuable consideration" is said to exclude compensation related to the "transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.'." (498b)

In other words, it is lawful to accept money for donated "human fetal tissue" if that money is applied to the necessary handling and presevation of the "tissue." The question then seems to be whether or not Planned Parenthood, in selling baby body parts, exceeded compensation necessary to handle the body parts.

This very matter was considered in an interview conducted by Al Kresta of Kresta in the Afternoon radio show on July 14 with David Daleiden, project lead of the Center for Medical Progress' undercover investigation. Kresta asked Daleiden to address the matter of receiving costs associated with the handling of "human fetal tissue" and this is the reply:

Daleiden: The most important thing is that most of those ancillary costs that might come with trying to facilitate human organ donation or a tissue donation–– none of those costs are actually incurred by Planned Parenthood. Because in a situation that you have in Planned Parenthood and StemExpress, for example, StemExpress is an outside, middle-man, biotech company that comes into the Planned Parenthood clinic. They send their technicians into the clinic. The clinics consent the patients. The clinics identify the patients that they want to harvest from. The clinics receive the fetuses in the pathology lab after they've been aborted. The StemExpress technicians do the dissection. They package up the body parts. And they drive over to the FedEx and ship them off across the country at the end of the day. So literally, the only thing that Planned Parenthood is doing is they're opening the front door for them in the morning, or sometimes the back door. And they're carrying the fetus from the operating room to the pathology lab which is across the hallway which is in the back of the clinic. And that's something that they do every day anyway because that's their standard processing of specimens anyway when they're doing abortions. So the Planned Parenthood clinic doesn't have any cost with the tissue procuring. In fact, they're actually saving money already because it's less volume of medical waste that they have to dispose of. And on top of that, the procurement company is paying them 50, 75, 100 dollars per specimen extra. 

At one point in the undercover video, Nucatola communicated that she had "8 cases yesterday." Let's say that is a normative number, and if, as Daleiden asserts, PP incurs zero or negligible handling costs with regard to the fetuses, that would mean a PP clinic could make upwards of $800 per day, and that's if each fetus was only used for one body part. If such is the case, PP would be in violation of federal law. This amount is unnerving if one calculates the thousands of dollars that could be earned in a year, and the added incentive for clinics to steer clients toward abortion. The legality and dollar amounts could also depend on variations between PP affiliate to affiliate, as not all of them may necessarily be arranged in exactly the same way Daleiden describes.

It may also be legally suspect that the PP consent form, acquiring permission from a woman to use her aborted baby for medical research, does not disclose that the clinic receives money for the donated body parts. NIHRA, however, states a doctor must reveal any "physician's interest" in the research process, which may legally be considered to include financial compensation. As quoted above, Nucatola did suggest clinics attempted to "come to a number that doesn’t look like they’re making money." A lengthier quote from Daleiden in the next section expounds on this.

The NC Register article describes what may be a more definitive violation of federal law, which is the alteration of the abortion procedure for the purpose of harvesting body parts. NIHRA states:

[I]n the case of tissue obtained pursuant to an induced abortion-- ... no alteration of the timing, method, or procedures used to terminate the pregnancy was made solely for the purposes of obtaining the tissue. (498a)

This law appears to have been violated as we see in Nucatola's words such as:

I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m going to basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact. And with the calvarium, in general, some people will actually try to change the presentation so that it’s not vertex...

These are explicit deviations in the "method" of the procedure for the purpose of harvesting suitable organ specimens. Such deviations could well qualify as illegal "methods."

The NC Register article also identifies one point in Nucatola's statements that potentially describes a partial-birth abortion, which was declared illegal in 2003.

"2 ADMISSIONS, 3 LIES"
Upon revelation of this undercover video, PP soon released a statement denying any illegalities and that the Center for Medical Progress unethically edited the video. Responding to that during the Kresta interview, Daleiden states the following:

Daleiden: Basically to summarize what was interesting about Planned Parenthood's response through Planned Parenthood's statement is that they make two really key admissions and then they tell three lies afterward. And the two important admissions are that they admit that some of their clinics supply aborted fetal tissue and they admit that there is money involved with supplying aborted fetal tissue.  The three lies that they tell are: Number one, that their patients asked for it and consent for it; Number two, that there is no financial benefit to Planned Parenthood, and; Number three, that there's nothing illegal going on there. Number one, the patients are consenting to donate tissue like we discussed in the previous segment with the consent form. But it's not being disclosed to the patient that there's money involved and that Planned Parenthood receives remuneration for the fetal tissue. So patients are consenting to donate. They are not consenting to selling. Selling is what's actually going on.  Point number two. In the document vault section of our website at centerformedicalprogress.org we have actually a flyer advertisement from one of the main, real-life purchasers of Planned Parenthood baby parts. They're a company called StemExpress. They're a private LLC, for profit company in northern California that partnered with very many Planned Parenthood clinics across the country. … That flyer advertises four different times to Planned Parenthood clinics the financial benefits that they can receive if they supply fetal tissue. It uses the phrases "financially profitable," "financial profits," "financial benefits to your clinic," and "fiscal growth of your own clinic." And that advertisement to Planned Parenthood clinics includes an endorsement printed on it from another Planned Parenthood medical director.  And so then the third lie that nothing illegal is going on about this. It all hinges on Planned Parenthood's claim that there's no money involved. But that's patently false, because every other source that you can go to, other than their communications director, will prove otherwise.

IS IT FAIR TO COMPARE PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S BODY PARTS SCANDAL TO NAZI SCIENTISTS WHO CONDUCTED HUMAN EXPERIMENTS?
A female caller in the second hour of Kresta's July 14 show says, "I'm very happy my father's dead because he [did] not live to see this. He would have felt that the Nazis had won. ... Mengele must have taught that doctor [Nucatola]." And the caller's reaction is not unique.

During World War II, Nazi scientists conducted a number of horrific experiments on prisoners in the name of scientific and medical advancement. Victims of the Nazis were subjected to such experiments as high-altitude tests to determine viable altitudes at which pilots could parachute, freezing experiments to determine treatments for hypothermia, as well as subjugation to multiple diseases in the name of finding a cure.

Victims of Dr. Josef Mengele's medical
experiments at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Poland, 1944. (Image courtesy of
 US Holocaust Memorial Museum)

That these prisoners were subjected to such violations of humanity, against their will, is all but universally held as evil. The sober philosopher recognizes the tragic irony of cruelly destroying mass human life in the name of preserving it. How did these scientists justify these crimes?

In the book The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremburg Code, authors George Annas and Michael Grodin identify 12 arguments made by Nazi scientists in defense of their actions. Argument #10 reads as follows:

Sometimes it is necessary to tolerate a lesser evil, the killing of some, to achieve a greater good, the saving of many. That the experiments were useful, the defense claimed, was evident by the use of the data derived from Nazi human experimentation by the United States and Britain in the war against Japan. (p. 133)

This argumentation is similar to those who now appeal to the "research" benefits garnered from the harvested body parts of aborted babies, as trafficked by the likes of PP (although many defendants of abortion for research deny it as an evil of any kind). Even PP-friendly media headlines have played this angle. This past week, the Washington Post actually altered their headline. It originally read "Undercover video shows Planned Parenthood exec discussing organ harvesting" but was changed to the more benign: "Undercover video shows Planned Parenthood official discussing fetal organs used for research."

The question comes down to this: If that which is in the womb is a human life,* then abortion, as well as the harvesting of that life's body parts for human experimentation, is murderous and horrific. And if that which is in the womb is a human life, then we are indeed living amidst the echo of Nazi concentration camps and human experimentation against unwilling victims, even if that reality is more difficult to see.

Our moral sensibilities recognize the violation done to an unwilling victim in these tragic events. Again, if that which is in the womb is a human life, the "consent form" used by PP is tantamount to asking Person A for consent to harvest the organs of Person B. The victim in question has granted no consent. The victim has been declared expendable in the name of science by someone else. (And, it should not be ignored that cures and medical advancements have been and will continue to be made in great strides without the mutilation and destruction of human victims.)

Furthermore, if that which is in the womb is a human life, as the Church and many allied souls recognize, then the victims of abortion have exceeded 57,000,000 since Roe vs. Wade in 1973. How can even the Nazi scientist, who would argue that the killing of "some" is worthy to save the "many," justify veritable infanticide and subsequent organ harvesting for human experimentation.

Related to this, the Catechism, in the section on abortion, offers what I think is valuable insight:

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation: "The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights...belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."  –– "The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined.

The tragedy of abortion and organ trafficking for research (or the Nazi human experiments) is at least twofold. First, the victim is violated in the most capital sense. Second, when these persons are classified as expendable subjects, the entire system of humanity incurs a seismic shift of injustice, effectively denying the equal dignity of all persons.

CONCLUSION

Staying abreast of the latest news on this issue may require active searching, as the media has not shown a historic propensity to expose that which validates Christian thought.From a legal perspective, time will tell whether or not PP and/or any of its affiliates will be found guilty of criminal wrongdoing. As the weeks pass, expect further details regarding PP nationally, as well as other individual PP clinics, which may be absolved or further incriminated in illegal organ trafficking or abortion violations. What will be PP's defense? Will they claim Nucatola exaggerated at times to land a sale? Will further incriminating facts surface?

Certainly, from a moral perspective, the spiritual crime of abortion has multiplied to an unnerving total. And the matter of dismembering aborted babies serves as a visible icon of the amputation of human consideration from the situation. Many prayers are warranted for this situation and all involved.

EDIT (7/21/15) TO ADD:
A second undercover video was released July 21, 2015 by the Center for Medical Progress. This video contains interview footage with Dr. Mary Gatter, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s for-profit Medical Directors’ Council.

The legal matters of altering the method, as well as profits, again, surface in this interview. At one point, Gatter begins a negotiation by tossing out the figure of "$75 a specimen." The buyer rejoins with, "That’s way too low." And Gatter admits:

I was going to say $50, because I know places that did $50, too. But see we don’t, we’re not in it for the money, and we don’t want to be in a position of being accused of selling tissue, and stuff like that.

Her claim about not being in it for the money could either be taken honestly or cynically. If honestly, PP should be able to substantiate the per-"specimen" dollar amount, that PP incurs that cost to handle the specimen. According to Daleiden's assertions above, PP incurs no such costs. If we are to take Gatter's words cynically, perhaps she is acting as a salesman, convincing the buyer that she is not out to overcharge them. As well, the cynical view would ask why there is a negotiation at all, if PP is not in it for the money. Later in the transcript, she also indicates she will increase the cost based on what her peers charge:

Well let me agree to find out what other affiliates in California are getting, and if they’re getting substantially more, then we can discuss it then.

And, as Nucatola states in the prior video, the goal is to make sure PP "doesn't look like they're making money."

As speculated above, a PP affiliate can collect tens of thousands of dollars per year from these sales. For their part, the Center for Medical Progress speculates a yield of over $86,000 for one affiliate. Whereas $30-$100 here or there may be easier to disguise than larger quantities, the sum total over time can prove lucrative. The accounting side of this matter appears quite pertinent to the investigation.

As for methodological red flags in this second video, Gatter candidly explains the legal concern of altering the procedure for the purpose of procuring intact body parts. The exchange goes as follows:

Buyer: The intact specimens, I wanted to touch on that. What I was trying to say is if the 10 to 12 week specimens, end of the 1st trimester, if those are pretty intact specimens, that’s something we can work with.

Gatter: So that’s an interesting concept. Let me explain to you a little bit of a problem, which may not be a big problem, if our usual technique is suction, at 10 to 12 weeks, and we switch to using an IPAS or something with less suction, and increase the odds that it will come out as an intact specimen, then we’re kind of violating the protocol that says to the patient,“We’re not doing anything different in our care of you.” Now to me, that’s kind of a specious little argument and I wouldn’t object to asking Ian, who’s our surgeon who does the cases, to use an IPAS at that gestational age in order to increase the odds that he’s going to get an intact specimen, but I do need to throw it out there as a concern. Because the patient is signing something and we’re signing something saying that we’re not changing anything with the way we’re managing you, just because we agree to give tissue. You’ve heard that before. 

Buyer: Yes. It’s touchy. How do you feel about that? 

Gatter: I think they’re both totally appropriate techniques, there’s no difference in pain involved, I don’t think the patients would care one iota. So yeah, I’m not making a fuss about that.

Later, Gatter admits:

[T]here are people who would argue that by using the IPAS instead of the machine, you’re slightly increasing the length of the procedure, you’re increasing the pain of the procedure...

You may notice that Gatter earlier said there is "no difference in pain involved" in the alternate procedure, yet here admits others say doctors using the alternate procedure are "increasing the pain." On this matter, Gatter ultimately implies she will defer to a doctor, Ian Tilley, on whether or not they will violate the patient agreement by changing the abortion method to which the client-mother agrees:

And then, if we want to pursue this, mutually, I talk to Ian and see how he feels about using a “less crunchy” technique to get more whole specimens.

*Just to clarify, I don't say "if that which is in the womb is a human life" to suggest the matter is unclear. I use this verbiage as a thought exercise, to invite even skeptics to confront the crux of the issue. I fully embrace the Church's and other philsophers', scientists', and religious persons' views that life begins––at the beginning. Thus, can a skeptic at least understand the perspective of a thoughtful pro-lifer, which reflects philosophical and quantifiable measures of the existence of life.

The Parable of the Great Feast: On marriage, God, and Pope Francis

Parable of the Great Banquet, Brunswick Monogrammist, (ca 1525-1545), 

acquired from Wikimedia Commons

THE PARABLE OF THE GREAT BANQUET

^16b A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; ¹⁷and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, "Come; for all is now ready." ¹⁸But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, "I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused." ¹⁹And another said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them; I pray you, have me excused." ²⁰And another said, "I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come." ²¹So the servant came and reported this to his master. Then the householder in anger said to his servant, "Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame." ²²And the servant said, "Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room." ²³And the master said to the servant, "Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. ²⁴For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet." (Luke 14:16-24)

The context proceeds a moment later to the infamous line:

If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (14:26)

As with many parables, there is a master and servants with the master representing God and the servants representing the people. The "invitation" to a banquet in the above parable corresponds to the eternal banquet (Rev. 19:9ff, CCC#1344, etc.).

In the parable, there are those who decline to attend. The passage refers to these "excuses." One points to his wife. The other two point to their professions. Of these persons, the master in the parable says they shall "[not] taste my banquet."

A cursory reading of the text may lead one to think one must follow God so "exclusively" that one cannot have a spouse, a family, a job, or even a "life." And that cursory reading would think the other of this text mad that any deviation from that exclusivity results in failure to attend the banquet––the figure of going to hell.

What could be so horrible about getting married or making a living or having a family? The answer is: nothing, in and of themselves.

I'll focus on the married servant, which I think will reveal the answer to each servant. We see Jesus opening his ministry in John's gospel account by attending a wedding and turning water into wine there at the prompt of his mother. (John 2:1-11). Jesus also affirms the sacrament of marriage as a divine event when he recalls Genesis:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matthew 19:5-6)

Is Jesus here contradicting what he said in Luke? If the parable's servant in Luke is to part from his wife for God's sake, isn't that a contradiction to Matthew 19 which states that the marriage was God's doing in the first place?

Again, a cursory reading of both texts may appear that way at first, but within them is the answer. A proper understanding of the totality of the teaching would recognize that a true marriage is indeed godly and bears mutual love, of giving oneself to the other (cf. Eph. 5:33). I also treated this teaching in a prior post, What did the Catholic Church teach about marriage, men and women in 1880?, in which we saw in Scripture and Pope Leo's words the beauty of a marriage which resembles Christ and the Church as bridegroom and bride, respectively.

If one's marriage bears those characteristics, if the partners love one another in the figure of Christ and the Church, then that marriage has not become an "excuse" to refuse God's invitation. Rather, that marriage is united with God and united with God's invitation. Choosing that kind of marriage does not result in excluding God.

The two most profound commandments of Christ are to love God and to love neighbor (e.g. Mark 12:30-31). There is not a dichotomy between the two. Thus, we can recognize that in The Parable of the Great Banquet, the married servant, by "refusing" the master's invitation, revealed that he had separated the two commandments. His marriage was ungodly. He chose his wife instead of God rather than his wife together with God. In a sense, in this servant's mind, his wife had replaced God, and thus became an idol of sorts.

Consider a couple views from the early Church. St. Basil (d. 379) writes of the verse in this way:

But he says, I cannot come, because that the human mind when it is degenerating to worldly pleasures, is feeble in attending to the things of God. (St. Basil, comment on Luke 14:20, quoted in Catena Aura)

St. Gregory (d. 604) writes:

But although marriage is good, and appointed by Divine Providence for the propagation of children, some seek therein not fruitfulness of offspring, but the lust of pleasure. And so by means of a righteous thing may not unfitly an unrighteous thing be represented. (St. Gregory, comment on Luke 14:20, quoted in Catena Aura)

Both of their points are that the foolish servant represented someone who took something good, marriage, and amputated it from God.

The decisions of the man with the field and the man with the oxen reveal the same. Their professions became something of a false god in place of God. There was no time for God in their work on the farm. The idea is the same here. Our work must not be something that we use as an excuse to avoid God's prompts. The same would go for the hyperbolic statement in Luke 14:26, that we must "hate" our family for God's sake, again shows how much we must keep God in the equation. The foolish servants in the parable all flocked to "good" things, but made them bad by refusing to consider God in their engagement with those good things.

St. Paul synthesized this idea well:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)

All this leads to a final thought on the mistake of seeing someone write a criticism of a particular category of a thing and presume he is criticizing the entire category. In the above examples, it is proper to recognize only the folly of participating in marriage or work if those things are absent of God. It is faulty to presume Christ condemned marriage and work categorically.

THE PARABLE OF THE GREAT BANQUET IN LIGHT OF EVANGELII GAUDIUM
This past week, the media engaged in another poor representation of Pope Francis' words in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. Various voices seem to think he categorically condemned free financial markets and capitalism. For example, the Pope writes the following:

While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. ... In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule. ... Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. (Evangelii Gaudium, 56-57)

You see if we read carefully, the Pope is not calling for categorical rejection of a free market. He is rather calling for a balance. He is calling for a market that includes ethics and due consideration of God––just as the master in The Great Banquet parable calls for those workers to still accept his invitation. What Pope Francis is condemning is a marketplace that has excluded ethics, excluded God. In other words, a business that commoditizes human beings commits offense against those persons. This can be seen, for example, in countries where workers are deprived of their due wage, or where there is price fixing, or monopolies, or collusion, etc.

Some opining in the media go so far as to brand the Pope a Marxist or Communist or that he wants a world government. But such representations of the document belie statements within it such as:

All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in their governments, businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders. (#60)

If we really want to achieve a healthy world economy, what is needed at this juncture of history is a more efficient way of interacting which, with due regard for the sovereignty of each nation, ensures the economic well-being of all countries, not just of a few.
(#206)

It is the responsibility of the State to safeguard and promote the common good of society. Based on the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, and fully committed to political dialogue and consensus building, it plays a fundamental role, one which cannot be delegated, in working for the integral development of all. This role, at present, calls for profound social humility. (#240)

So these are just a few excerpts where the Pope condemns government corruption (not just financial corruption in marketplaces) and also emphasizes the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, which are concepts in Catholic thought based on the due freedom of an entity, whether individual, corporate, or public, such as a nation. He criticizes not free markets, but free markets which violate and manipulate persons. He criticizes not the wealthy, but the wealthy who exploit and debase persons. He even writes "The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike." (58)

In a 2011 book, On Heaven and Earth, the Pope, then-Cardinal Bergoglio, clearly did not create a dichotomy between rogue economies and communist thought. 

[The Church] condemns economic liberalism. Everyone thinks that the Church is against Communism, but it is as opposed to that system as it is to the savage economic liberalism which exists today. That is not Christian either and we cannot accept it.

In other words, everyone already knows the Church is opposed to Communist thought, but not everyone knows that the Church is opposed to what Pope Francis here calls "savage economic liberalism." To recognize him to condemn one is not to understand him to embrace the other. Yet many in the media have committed that exact error in interpretation.

The media also seems deluded that Pope Francis' teaching here is revolutionary. The media did not have the same sort of frenzy when Pope Benedict XVI said:

It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism. (Pope Benedict XVI, World Day of Peace, January 2013)

This statement by Pope Benedict encompasses a point Pope Francis drives home in Evangelii Gaudium––that a market which is "selfish and individualistic" (i.e. disregarding God) is what should be criticized.

So, once again, one should not make the false assumption that the Pope has "categorically" condemned free markets or all forms of government or all persons with wealth. Rather he is exhorting those entities to do what the master in The Parable of the Great Banquet asks of everyone––to include God in all that they do.

Media appears unaware that Pope Francis' statement on judging "gays" is nothing new

Today, headlines abounded throughout the news media that Pope Francis said he would not "judge" gay priests. From this article at CatholicNews.com, the Pope's expanded quote in question reads:

A gay person who is seeking God, who is of good will -- well, who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says one must not marginalize these persons, they must be integrated into society. The problem isn't this (homosexual) orientation -- we must be like brothers and sisters. The problem is something else, the problem is lobbying either for this orientation or a political lobby or a Masonic lobby. (see bottom of post for links to full English translation of interview)

A BBC article, among others, expressed surprise at such a notion, stating: "The Pope's remarks are being seen as much more conciliatory than his predecessor's position on the issue."

Briefly, I'll point out the problem with the headlines that do not mention the person in question's pursuit of God and good will, which is different than the insinuation that the Pope doesn't judge the behavior of any "gay" person. Most headlines focus only on the first sentence, and only some articles expand on other parts of his statement.

But why would such a statement even be a headline? Even in the context of the Pope's comments, he refers to his comment being a reflection of the Catechism, which reads:

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

The media's reaction to Pope Francis' statement reveals a serious ignorance about Catholic teaching. Some stories insisted Pope Francis exhibited a new "tone," toward those with homosexual inclinations, attempting to contrast him with Pope Benedict XVI. Yet, in 2003, Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) provided almost the identical sentiment while citing the Catechism:

[A]ccording to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided”. They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. (Cardinal Ratzinger, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, 2003)

Years earlier, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a letter to bishops regarding the pastoral care of homosexual persons, in which he wrote:

The characteristic concern and good will exhibited by many clergy and religious in their pastoral care for homosexual persons is admirable, and, we hope, will not diminish. Such devoted ministers should have the confidence that they are faithfully following the will of the Lord by encouraging the homosexual person to lead a chaste life and by affirming that person's God-given dignity and worth. ... The God who is at once truth and love calls the Church to minister to every man, woman and child with the pastoral solicitude of our compassionate Lord. (Cardinal Ratzinger, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, 1986)

As Pope Benedict, he said the same, again reflecting the basic Catechism teaching:

Deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which are found in a number of men and women, are also objectively disordered and, for those same people, often constitute a trial. Such persons must be accepted with respect and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. They are called to fulfil God's will in their lives and to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter. (Pope Benedict XVI, Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies, 2005)

Both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict reflected the exact same sentiment as can be read in the Catechism. And Pope Benedict's words were even placed in official Church documents as compared to Pope Francis' comments off the cuff. Other statements by other bishops or Popes in history can be found to express a similar sentiment. Yet when Pope Francis articulated it recently, the media acted surprised. Where was the media in 1986 or 2005 to isolate a quote by Pope Benedict about gays stating, "Pope says gays worthy of love and dignity" or "Pope criticizes those who discriminate against gays." Why does the BBC, quoted above, think Pope Benedict's attitude was any different that Pope Francis'?

If the media had then desired to paint that particular caricature of Pope Benedict XVI, they could have done so, as they have with Pope Francis. But they were either negligent in recognizing Pope Benedict's words, or perhaps they consider the current social climate opportune to accent any comment that could be construed as favorable to a particular ideology, such as the current movement to certify "gay marriage" as a real institution. That could be why they did not isolate his sentence a moment later and come up with what would have been an accurate headline such as "Pope Francis condemns those who 'lobby' for homosexual behavior." Instead, Pope Francis may be seen as the media's utilitarian Rorschach blot from whom they have decided to draw whatever appearance they choose.

MEANING OF "JUDGE"
It is apparent in reading headlines such as the embarrassingly inaccurate one at the Huffington Post on this issue reading "Breakthrough: Pope OK with Gays," that some people interpret not "judging" in this context as "approval" of gay behavior.

It does not take much effort to read the next sentence in the Pope's statement that the Church's position is clarified in the Catechism. Quoted above is CCC#2358 on treating all persons with love, including those with homosexual tendencies. The preceding paragraph, CCC#2357 states: "[H]omosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. ... Under no circumstances can they be approved." So we have two teachings: homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered sins and we are still called to love those with homosexual tendencies. Also critical here is the following:

CCC#1861 Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

That's what the Catechism states. The Catechism is where Pope Francis referred those to understand the meaning of him not passing judgment on persons, even if one has judged those persons to have committed objectively mortal sins. It seems difficult for some in the media to understand that it is possible to love someone without approving of their every behavior. In fact, sometimes the loving response to another is to disapprove of their behavior. But perhaps this concept is alien to some persons, causing them to automatically misinterpret the Pope's meaning of not judging.

THIS INCIDENT SHOWS THE RELEVANCE OF THE CHURCH
Just a final observation––I think the matter of this media frenzy today demonstrates the relevance of the Church. Even though comboxes or members of the media scoff at the Church, claiming her to be irrelevant, their ear remains turned even as they look the other way. It demonstrates the moral authority the Church still bears, even as there exists irrational cries to silence her. Many members of the media appear almost giddy that the Pope may have approved homosexual behavior (which he did not). Could there be a psychology, that though some people with their lips say they don't care what the Pope says, they subconsciously desire the support of the Pope because they recognize the moral authority the Church still bears? Even if the media is trying to "use" the Pope as utilitarian to advance a particular cause, in their abuse of the Pope's words, they show that they recognize the power in having the Church's voice on their side. Perhaps it is telling that this is at least the third time the media has misrepresented Pope Francis' words: on atheism, Purgatory, and now homosexual behavior.

See also:
What Pope Francis really said about gays - and no, it's not new by Fr. Jonathan Morris
7 things you need to know about what Pope Francis said about gays by Jimmy Akin
Added 8/5/13: Here is Zenit's English translation of the entire Pope Francis interview on the Brazil flight (part 1 and part 2)

.