Last month I offered a philosophical argument showing why contraception isn’t medicine. This month, I will treat some questions and clarify some difficult points.
Q. Your theory is neat, but it doesn’t match reality. Doctors commonly treat certain diseases with hormonal contraceptives. Therefore, aren’t we correct to regard such contraceptives as medicine?
A. The real question is whether contraceptive acts can be medical acts.
Last Friday a group of friars attended the rally outside of HHS headquarters here in Washington to protest in favor of religious freedom. There were speakers and prayers, bloggers and journalists, members of the media, religious, priests, and just ordinary people.
For those of us at the rally it was clear what an injustice it is that churches and the hospitals, universities, schools, social services agencies, and publishers they operate will be forced to buy contraceptive and abortifacient drugs for their employees and students. For supporters of the contraceptive mandate it is just as clear that the ability to postpone or completely avoid pregnancy is so obviously fundamental to women’s rights that all employers should provide it for their employees.
“For the love of God.” This was my exasperated reaction as I read the news that, on February 27, seventeen-year-old T.J. Lane, armed with a twenty-two caliber handgun, walked into the cafeteria of Chardon High School in Ohio and shot five students, three of whom died. It is difficult to make sense out of such an evil act. How does one understand or account for the reality of innocent suffering? Why does God permit such evil and injustice? What drives a person to do such things?
The words “information” and “ecstasy” are not easily brought together. Even the recent fad of nerd-glorifying shows like Chuck and The Big Bang Theory would have a hard time of it. But fear not: what today’s nerds consider impossible, the scholastic doctors were able to accomplish. Not only did they bring together these seemingly disparate concepts, they discovered and articulated profound connections between them. Today, I invite you to join me on an equally bold—and nerdy—endeavor: taking these connections and applying them to how we spend the last days of Lent.
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words—Wait and Hope.” Alexandre Dumas’ masterpiece, The Count of Monte Cristo, concludes with this startling truth. But a question immediately presents itself: what are we waiting and hoping for? In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul provides an answer: “Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (8:19). Humanity, along with the whole created order, is waiting for the saving and illuminating action of God Himself. Now, waiting implies an awareness of our own insufficiency, and an awareness of our own insufficiency is the first step toward humility and patience. Thus, even on a purely human level, there is a kind of wisdom or virtue in being open to the intervention of that which is beyond nature: the supernatural, or divine.
In Lent 2011, the Dominican student brothers gave a series of conferences, viewing the Cross from a number of different angles.
In the video below, Br. Gabriel Torretta, O.P., explores some key theological themes and developments in representations of the Crucifixion in the history of Western art in his talk, “Painting, Crucified.”
Find the schedule and locations of student-brother conferences for Lent 2012 here.
When I was in college I often took delight in the Letters to the Editor of the student newspaper. It was like a circus of the absurd: in the left circle, the freshman, full of sound and fury, who has just realized that the dining hall will not be serving meat on the Fridays of Lent; in the right circle, the alumnus who is inexplicably still concerned about the daily affairs of an institution he has long since left; and, center stage, well worth the price of admission, the graduate student. In a way, one could forgive the freshman his zeal or the alumnus his nostalgia—but the graduate student? Shouldn’t he be above this sort of thing?
There was one graduate student whose letters were particularly delightful.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
—Matthew 4:1
“Wilderness” is a shifting term. The Greek term that Saint Matthew uses in this passage, erēmos, means a desolate and lonely place, a “desert” in the literal sense of a place that has been deserted by all. In keeping with our knowledge of first-century Palestine and its environs, we generally imagine Christ’s forty-day fast occurring in an empty waste of sand and stone, where the scorching sun has scraped the open land free of any shade or respite from its heat.
But not every culture has looked to Palestine as the first referent for Christ’s wilderness wanderings.
As children, we all heard stories of pirates in search of buried treasure. They always had a map, and “X” always marked the spot. The excitement of the adventure captured our imagination: along with the pirates, the Goonies, or whoever happened to be searching for the treasure, we felt the thrill of chasing after riches we did not yet have but sorely desired.
Notice, however, that we were never told much about what happened after the pirates found their treasure.
In a world that appears increasingly hostile to Christ and His Church, occasions for despair are legion. The descent into this unfortunate passion is expressed in various modes and degrees, ranging from apostasy to fortress mentality. Perhaps one of the most subtle and insidious of snares is an embittered antagonism. The psychology of the embittered antagonist is familiar enough: The world is his enemy. The world is consciously and stridently achieving its goals of undermining everything in, of, or pertaining to Christ and His Church. So, one comes to expect from the world only enmity, stupidity, and out-and-out hostility. The trenches become clearly defined and, though there be souls for the winning in no-man’s-land, the embittered antagonist finds himself thinking only about how he would like to tell off those in charge of the “enemy camp.” The front page of the newspaper provides him with ample opportunity for sighing and swearing.
One must ask, though, whether this response runs counter to the cause of Christ.