Porn Is More Addictive Than Cocaine or Heroine!

We have known for years that porn is destructive to marriages, families, individuals, and society. We also know that is is addictive - more so than crack or heroine. Science is just now finding out just how destructive it is to the brain. Using pornography radically changes the neuro-pathways in the brain by causing the body to inject strong neuro-stimulants directly into the pleasure center of the brain. Repeatedly doing this means the structure of the brain itself is altered and the effects are devastating.

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Society is starting to realize that the pill is bad.

Finally, after 70 years of poisoning women, society is starting to ask if this is healthy. No, sinning is never healthy.

In one of a pair of recent articles by major Canadian media exploring how women are increasingly turning away from hormonal contraception, the executive director for Sexual Health Access Alberta (formerly known as Planned Parenthood Alberta), bemoans the lack of information about natural family planning...

Featured on the homepage of SHAA's website is a link to a November 2009 Maclean’s Magazine article, describing why women are “ditching” the pill. They point out some of the health concerns that have been raised, such as the April study from Texas A&M University that linked the pill with poor muscle growth, as well as mentioning parenthetically the research that has linked the pill with breast and cervical cancer...

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What's wrong with Euthanasia

The problem with euthanasia is that it sends a message that some lives are worth living and others are not and that it is up to man to decide which. Once you say that person A can be killed because condition X makes his life not worth living, you've allowed person B to be killed because of Y. By making the value of a life contingent on something you devalue all life. It's not just a slippery slope, but a jump off a cliff.

Furthermore, by telling someone that suicide is an option what are you telling them? It says that the loneliness and despair they feel is all there is. There is no one who loves them, no one who cares. You are in effect telling that person that their life is unwanted, that they are useless consumers who should be killed for the convienence of others. I can't think of a more hateful thing than to say "yes, you're right, you're life isn't worth living."

Additional comment from a friend:

Something to add would be how difficult it can be to determine a person's true level of cognitive impairment, which seems to be a big factor in determining whether or not a person can CHOOSE whether or not they want to die (otherwise, it falls on a family member I suppose...). This is pretty important when you consider how many individuals who are euthanized have some type of cognitive deficit.

Working with communication disorders, it's really easy to see how something as simple as a hearing loss can exacerbate a person's state of confusion. Many patient's just try to fake like they understand what you're saying or they are so demented that they really don't have the ability to tell you what's wrong with their hearing. Either way, bad hearing can make a person's cognitive status appear MUCH worse than it actually is.

Another point to take into account is that once someone has it in their mind that "hey, this person's pretty demented," it can make it VERY difficult to change their mind. One of my previous supervisors told me about how there was a woman on the Alzheimer's ward at her nursing home that really wasn't that demented and really didn't NEED to be there and didn't want to be there. There were one or two higher staff members there that said the woman was very demented and needed to be on the Alzheimer's ward. From the sounds of it, one of the staff members just had it in her mind that the lady was demented and not much could be said to change her mind. Eventually it WAS determined that the lady really was pretty with it and was taken off the ward.

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't always tell how cognitively impaired someone is just by looking at them or having a conversation with them, and many people in nursing homes could be taken advantage of due to this. While we'd like to believe that there's always going to be a nice clean procedure in determing whether or not someone should be euthanized, it won't always be. In the end, regardless of whether or not someone believes euthanasia is equivalent to murder, people WILL be murdered because there are going to be times when proper procedures won't be always be made.

Some other resources:

• Priests for Life
• A nurse's view of how the vulnerable are targeted.
• I'm Hungry, I want Food, by John C. Wright
• No one wants to talk about it?, by John C. Wright
• "The Flag of the World," Orthodoxy, by Chesterton (This addresses the difference between suicide and martyrdom - but anything Chesterton is worth reading if only for the dose of logic).
  

Is Mary the Ark of the New Covenant?

This is a great question to address. Lets start with the Ark of the Old Covenant; what was it? It was just a pretty box with some stuff in it right? Lets check out Exodus 25:

"You shall make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, one an a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high. Plate it inside and outside with pure gold, and put a molding of gold around the top of it...You shall then make a cover of pure gold, two cubits and a half long, and one and a half cubits wide. Make two cherubim of beaten gold for the two ends of the cover, fastening them so that one cherub springs direct from each end...[and more details]"

Within this chapter we find that the ark was more than "just a pretty box," or at least God thought so. He laid out very detailed measurements for it and how it was to be made and the area it was to be kept. When finished it didn't just hold "some stuff," but three items: the ten commandments (Dt 10:2), the Rod of Jesse (somewhere in OT), and manna from the desert (Ex 16:34). It was this that was overshadowed by God and He dwelt among them.

Now when we consider the things that the ark held we see that they were all types of Jesus. Jesus is the true Manna come down from heaven of which we eat and never die (John 6). Jesus is the true high priest who offers the one sacrifice (Heb 4:14). And Jesus is the Word of God made flesh (John 1). Jesus is the fulfillment of the OT types, so one begins to wonder what the fulfillment of the ark is. What is it that was overshadowed by God and through which He became man and dwelt among us?

In Luke 1:35 we find the angel telling Mary "...The holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." Well, it would appear that Mary is a likely candidate for the New Ark of the Covenant, is there anything else to support this?

Yes! Luke continues with the travels of Mary, how she journeyed to the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth. At her greeting John the baptist leaps for joy and Elizabeth cries out "How should this be that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?" Mary remains there for three months and I'm sure brought blessings upon the house.

In the OT we hear the Ark's journey in the hill country (2 Sam 6). The ark was being brought away from the Philistines to Jerusalem when Uzzah reached out and touched it when he wasn't supposed to. Upon his death David cries out "How can the ark of the Lord come to me?" The ark is then taken to the home of Obededom and left there for three months during which it greatly blesses the household. At the end of this time David brings it into Jerusalem leaping and dancing before it.

The parallels are clearly there, is it enough? Is there anything else?

Well, the ark of the OC had exact specifications and was carefully made, without flaw. Christians (at least until after Luther) believed that Mary was carefully made by God so that she would be without flaw and a fitting dwelling place for God.

And finally we come back to Revelation and the Ark and the Woman. If we put ourselves in the mindset of the Jews of the time what would they have heard? That John saw a vision of the Ark of God! The ark that has been missing for years and is a powerful weapon of Israel, leading them in battles. How marvelous and exciting! What does it look like (is it as glorious as described)? Where is it? How do we find it? Oh how exciting!

Yet John doesn't describe it. He describes everything else, every other vision is full of eyes and wings and fiery wheels, but this vision that the Jews would have been drooling over to hear more gets only a couple lines? There is an ark and some loud thunder...quite a let down.

But if we remember that at the time the bible was written there were no chapter or verse dividers there is the possibility for more. Could it be that John is describing the ark when he describes the woman? "The Lord's temple is opened and you could see the ark within the temple, a woman clothed with the sun..."

This makes sense to me, but this isn't new teaching (if it were I would doubt it). There have been Christians throughout history who've seen this connection.

Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373) was the main defender of the deity of Christ against the second-century heretics. He wrote: "O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O [Ark of the] Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides" (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin).

This is just a brief post, there are others who've written whole books on this topic (and done a much better job). Further readings:

• "Mary: Ark of the New Covenant" (catholicculture.org)
• "Venerators of the Lost Ark: Israel and the Bearer of the New Covenant", Chapter 3 in Hail Holy Queen by Scott Hahn

Evangelizing Family

Many of us want to share our faith with those closest to us, but often those people are the hardest to talk to. Eric Simmons gives a few suggestions on how to evangelize those we love. This is an older post, but I believe still applicable over the Christmas season.

This week most of us will be closely interacting with cafeteria Catholics, fallen-away Catholics and non-Catholics. In other words, we will be visiting family for Thanksgiving. Those of us who are trying to live an authentically Catholic life are pained when we see those we love rejecting the Church and her loving guidelines for a fulfilling life. So what do we do? How do we evangelize those people who are closest to us? I have a few suggestions from my own personal experience.

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What happens to the pope's ring after he dies?

On our last trip we had a guy ask us about what happens to the pope's ring after he dies. Another person in the group he was with said that it was ground into a powder and buried with the pope, at least according to Angels and Demons. Unfortunately being in a Dan Brown book almost guarantees that the fact is either widely exaggerated or flat out wrong.

However in this case it appears to be true. The pope's ring (otherwise called the Fisherman's Ring) was used in past centuries to seal papal documents. Upon the death of the pope it is destroyed to prevent forgeries. The conclave (or the cardinals who elect the new pope) are given the responsibility of destroying the ring

13. In one of the Congregations immediately following, the Cardinals, on the basis of a prearranged agenda, shall take the more urgent decisions regarding the beginning of the election. In other words:
g) they shall arrange for the destruction of the Fisherman's Ring and of the lead seal with which Apostolic Letters are despatched; (Universi Dominici Gregis)

This document doesn't specifically say how the ring is destroyed, but there are many sites that suggest that it's face is marred by scratching it and then it is crushed with a silver hammer. The pieces are then buried with the pope along with other symbols of his office.

I can't find an online resource to verify this, but this blog details the ceremony surrounding the pope's death based on the book "The Church Visible: The Ceremonial Life and Protocol of the Roman Catholic Church" by James-Charles Noonan, Jr.

Also, Catholic Answers has an Ask an Apologist thread on the topic, unfortunately the link they give is now out of date.

What happened to Limbo?

Q - I heard in the news that the Pope has changed church teaching and now says that there is no Limbo, is this true?

A - Although several theologians postulated it as a possible explanation for unbaptized infants, Limbo was never officially taught by the Church. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

As regards children who have died without baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved and Jesus’ tenderness toward children, which caused him to say, "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy baptism. (CCC 1261)

For further reading:

• Aggie Catholic has a good post on whether or not Limbo is a doctrine and why it matters if it exists or not.
  
• "Out on a Limbo" (2001) Karl Keeting