babiegoose.com

if you stay up late and wake up early...

you really cannot focus while you are at work...

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what you end up focusing on is the fact that you do not want to be at work, that you should have gotten more sleep, and that maybe you should not have come in early.

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the only good thing about the fact of me coming in early is the fact that I will be leaving early.

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at least today, I am actually allowed to leave early...

my childhood has come to a close.

it was inevitable.

I will be always be a child at heart, but my childhood is officially over.

why, you ask?

here is why:

- I am engaged
- I have a mortgage
- I have bills
- I ended my comic book collection
- I have a career
- I can no longer consistently stay up past 2:00am
- Buffy and Angel have completed their series

Anyone of these alone would not be the harbinger of the end my childhood, my adolescence...

but combined, the form the undeniable fact that I am my own responsibility.

By the grace of God and aside from a few gifts here and there, I am earning all my own money and I am supporting myself. (Holy crap!)

I never really looked at it that way...

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you have to appreciate how sobering a fact that is...

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and in a few years, that could possibly be taken for granted and I can ignore all of the blessings bestowed upon me and then have a mid-life crisis.

wow, so that said, I can go through life without ever really living it, if I so chose. I can imagine all of the joy and sorrow and love and pain and sunshine and rain and just skip to the end...

but that is no fun...

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So, last night was the series finale of Angel, which spun off from Buffy, which was one of the pillars of my adolescence... well... I guess I was in college, but when you are in college you are just a really big kid with no parents running around doing everything and anything you wanted based on whatever guide rails you wish to follow that were laid down by your parents...

whatever.

when Buffy ended I was like "Oh, there is still Angel"

and now that is over...

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I feel old now.

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My responsibilities are no different now than anyone who has a family... except for the fact that I am lacking everything, to date, to have a family of which I am half of the main contributor...

I will soon be a husband, and eventually a father.

I am happy that I am venturing into a new life...
a better life...

but it just sucks that I no longer can be fiscally, emotionally, physically, and in all other ways irresponsible.

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well, I could but the consequences are much more dire at this stage of the game...

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but let us not dwell on that...

I have things to do.

I have a purpose now, but how I go about fulfilling that purpose is another matter...

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When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 13:11-13

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but we can still play tag, right?

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Angel spoilers to follow...

I have been living at my house for a couple of weeks now.

and I have yet to actually cook something.

My meals have been amounted to nothing more than pizza, fast food, take-out, and leftovers.

nothing that required a pot or a pan or a stove.

I have used the oven once.

but that was to defrost and crisp a sub that I froze.

I have cookingware now.

my mom let me take a couple of pots and pans and utensils, because she probably knew that if she did not then I would probably have waited until Lorie and I got our wedding presents before I would actually have something to cook a meal at my house.

I also took my rice cooker, so the 25 pound bag of rice that I first moved into the house during a growing moon can actually be consumed.

I just need to go grocery shopping.

:-P

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I just remembered.

I have a few cans of stew and soup.

I think I am just going to buy some bread, and hold out...

I will go grocery shopping just before Lorie comes home.

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there are two issues that weigh on my mind at the moment.

I do not have time to think about produce, meat, and baked goods...

man... I really need to stop letting work get to me sometimes...

there are times when I think everything is coming down so hard that I stress about it even when I leave work...

ever since I started work I have always made a concerted effort to forget about work when I leave the office... of course support and deadlines make that a problem sometimes, but for the most part, work stays at work...

Anyhow, I was stressing all weekend about stuff at work... taking away from my unwinding from work.

fortunately a poker tournament and mother's day helped alleviate some of that crap for the most part, but I always came back to the stuff I was worried about at work...

I promised myself that I would believe "It is just work... it is just a job..."

I do know that...

but when I think things are my fault, I stress about it until I get it fixed.

that is how I am and how I was...

that is usually not a problem, but when you have a lot of very important eyes on you or if there is a deadline, then it just piles on top of your already teetering stack...

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but I am fine today...

a lot of praying and prioritizing and thinking and examination put things into perspective...

plus some of my problems have been resolved so I do not feel as pressured...

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I need to get some new brown shoes...

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I still have not seen the inside of my sister's house...

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does anyone want to play paintball with me?

I am pro-life.

not because I am told to be as a Catholic.

but because I believe that life, in all of its forms, is important and precious...

no matter how it came into being...

I only bring this up because we live in a world today where much of the mentality is to want all of the benefits without the sacrifice...

to want all of the pleasure but none of the price.

to no longer care about what is right, but instead what can it get away with...

of course, I am only generalizing. I do not believe that people as a whole have such a bleak perspective on human nature...

but from what society has deemed acceptable, from what is "allowed", it is not conducive to a society that will is chock full of moral fiber.

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well, all of that and I found the article below...

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there have been many changes in my life that have forced me to re-examine the course I have taken. I have decided that I am going to attempt to veer my course into the direction that I believe is the right one. One that is more aligned with my faith. One that is more aligned with my philosophy. One that is more aligned with my conscience.

Conscience has much to do with how you are raised. I believe that we, as humans, have a basic understanding about what is right and wrong that is intrisic to our nature. The environment in which we are brought up reinforces, or diminishes, the natural morals within ourselves and introduce new rules along with the ones we just knew...

Sometimes, things just feel wrong.

It is outside pressure that make us do something that we feel is wrong.

It is the repetition of that behavior that conditions us to ignore that feeling.

I need to get back to listening to that.

I have not contributed to the social health of society.

I am selfish. that happens when there is a lack of trust in the world. you start to believe that at any moment, someone else can take everything you have away.

So you take and burrow away what you can, not thinking about if you really need what it is you are taking.

I am materialistic. that happens when you are bombarded with images of how your life could be, or should be, by people who are trying to sell you something. That maybe, your life would be somehow better because of this product, or that you will feel better about things because of this service.

I am egotistical. that happens when... um... I actually do not know how I got this way.but I have an over-inflated self-image and I know it pisses people off, but because of the nature of egotism, many time, I do not care.

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but like I said.

I am trying to be better.

but sometimes life gives you blinders, and you can get lost...

the best you can do is do what you think is right...

right by you, and right by your faith...

and then God will take it from there...

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so anyhow, I came across this... I thought it was interesting... so I am putting it up.

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Response to the Detroit Free Press Editorial,
October 19, 2002

I am currently without the use of my voice. However, the editorial printed in yesterday's Detroit Free Press (October 19) certainly cannot go by without some response. I am only too aware of how angry many people are (quite justifiably so) after the nonsense they read. Therefore, allow me to summarize again the statements made by three priests and one former priest, and to offer a short response.

Some of the arguments made by Kosnik, et al. and responses.


The Church's teaching regarding abortion has been inconsistent.

Response: This is simply ridiculous. "The tradition of the Church has always held that human life must be protected and cherished from the beginning, just as at all the various stages of its development. Opposing the morals of the Greco-Roman world, the Church of the first centuries insisted on the difference that exists on this point between those morals and Christian morals" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion, 1974, n. 6). For example, as early as the Didache, a late 1st or early 2nd century Christian writing, we read, "You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish" (2.2). (Note: Rodney Stark, a sociologist, in his book The Rise of Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), notes emphatically that this practice of the early Church, namely, respect for children, both in the womb and immediately after birth, as well as respect for the mothers of these children, is one of the most significant sociological factors for why the Church attracted so many women so early on.)


The authors point out that the Church has wavered over the years as to when the soul is infused ("ensoulment"). In making their case, the authors cite St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Pius IX, and Vatican II .

Response: It is true that even today, there is no definitive teaching from the Church as to when, exactly, the soul is infused. It is most important to note, however, whom the authors fail to cite regarding this delicate matter of ensoulment Two of the most crucial documents to cite in this regard would be the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortion, and Pope John Paul II's Gospel of Life (1995).


In the document from the CDF we read, "This declaration leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point, and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some, it dates from the first instant, for others it could at least precede nidation. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation [i.e., that abortion is gravely immoral] remains independent for two reasons (italics mine): (i) supposing a later animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from its parents is completed; (ii) on the other hand it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve accepting the risk of killing a man, not only waiting for, but already in possession of his soul" (footnote 13).


The authors also conspicuously fail to cite in any way Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Letter The Gospel of Life. This is especially critical in that the Pope directly speaks about the matter of "ensoulment". He writes, "Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, 'from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father or the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not already human. This has always been clear, and.modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. It has demonstrated that from the first instant there is established the programme of what this living being will be: a person, this individual person with his characteristic aspects already well determined.' . Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide a 'valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?' What is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition aimed at killing a human embryo. Precisely for this reason, over and above all scientific debates and those philosophical affirmations to which the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself, the Church has always taught and continues to teach that the result of human procreation, from the first moment of its existence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respect which is morally due to the human being in his or her totality and unity as body and spirit" (60, italics mine).


The Pope continues, "The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life" (ibid). Finally, in n. 62 of The Gospel of Life, the Pope confirms that the Church has infallibly taught that direct abortion is intrinsically evil: "Given such unanimity in the doctrinal and disciplinary tradition of the Church, Paul VI was able to declare that this tradition is unchanged and unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the bishops . who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine . I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God, which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church."


The authors claim that "many of the most respected Catholic theologians in the field (presumably the field of bioethics) conclude .that the lack of differentiation of the individual in the first 14 days of development preclude concluding that we have at this stage a unique individual human being."

Response: First of all, who are these "respected theologians"? Second, the mere fact that a particular theologian, of whatever stripe, maintains a position means nothing. What matters is the strength of the argument they hold . not who they are. Thirdly, as Robert George notes in his book The Clash of Orthodoxies (Wilmington: ISI Books, 2001), it is an incontrovertible scientific fact that when a human sperm fuses with a human egg the result is a single-cell human zygote. This zygote has, normally, 46 chromosomes, which are mixed differently than they are found in either the mother or the father. This zygote is a separate organism from either the mother or the father. It produces specifically human proteins and enzymes. It possesses the active capacity to develop itself into a human embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent, and adult. It is a distinct, unitary, complex, actively self-integrating human organism . a human being.


The fact that the phenomenon of "twinning" can occur within 14 days (which is what the authors are referring) does not change this scientific fact. It is true that until implantation, normally 14 days after conception, two or more human individuals with the same genetic composition may come from one original zygote. This becomes a complicated, terminologically challenging matter to discuss in such a short letter as this (I refer those of you who are truly interested to William E. May's Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor Books, 2000), esp. pp 166-170, and Patrick Lee's Abortion and Unborn Human Life (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), esp. 90-102). In May's words, "The argument that individual human persons cannot begin at fertilization because of such phenomena as identical twinning is based on appearances and alleged common sense, but it fails to prove what it claims to prove.Twinning and similar facts in no way compel us to conclude that individual human persons do not begin to be at conception/fertilization. It is possible that some human individuals begin to be between fertilization and implantation, but most human individuals do come to be at fertilization/conception; it is reasonable to hold that they do and unreasonable to claim that they do not."


Lastly, the authors resort to that age-old favorite: "follow your conscience." They write that Catholics have a "responsibility" to "follow their well-formed conscience."

Response: This is all true. However, what is significant, again, is what is lacking from the authors, namely, any attempt to define what they mean by "conscience", let alone what the description "well-formed" entails. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right" (n. 1778). Regarding abortion, then, what would need to be argued by someone advocating it, is not simply that this concrete act is legal, but how the act is "just and right."


The Catechism also helps us understand what the authors do not, namely, how conscience becomes "well-formed." "Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and reject authoritative teachings" (1783). "Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law, or on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them" (1788). "Some rules apply in every case: one may never do evil so that good may result from it; the Golden Rule: 'Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them." (1789). "A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed" (1789). "This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man 'takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.' In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits" (1790). "The Word of God is a light for our path. We must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. This is how moral conscience is formed" (1802).


Pope John Paul II also helps us understand this so-often misunderstood word. He writes, "It is precisely the conscience in particular which determines this dignity [of the human person]. For the conscience is 'the most secret core and sanctuary of a man, where he is alone with God [not merely alone!], whose voice echoes in his depths.' It can 'speak.to his heart more specifically: do this, shun that.' This capacity to command what is good and to forbid evil, placed in man by the Creator, is the main characteristic of the personal subject. But at the same time, 'in the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience.' The conscience is therefore not an independent and exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil.The conscience is the 'voice of God' even when man recognizes in it nothing more than the principle of the moral order which it is not humanly possible to doubt, even without any direct reference to the Creator. It is precisely in reference to this that the conscience always finds its foundation and justification.If the conscience is upright, it serves 'to resolve according to truth the moral problems which arise both in the life of individuals and from social relationships'; then 'persons turn aside from blind choice and try to be guided by the objective standards of moral conduct.' A result of an upright conscience is, first of all, to call good and evil by their proper name, as we read [in Vatican II's Gaudium et spes, 27]: 'Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction; whatever violates the integrity of the human person.; whatever insults human dignity.All these things and others of their kind are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator'" (Pope John Paul II, The Lord and Giver of Life, 1986, n. 43). Apparently, the authors, when citing the documents of Vatican II, glossed over this quote.

The Declaration on Procured Abortion is also helpful here. "In many countries the public authorities which resist the liberalization of abortion laws are the object of powerful pressures aimed at leading them to this goal. This, it is said, would violate no one's conscience, for each individual would be left free to follow his own opinion, while being prevented from imposing it on others. Ethical pluralism is claimed to be a normal consequence of ideological pluralism. There is, however, a great difference between the one and the other, for action affects the interests of others more quickly than does mere opinion. Moreover, one can never claim freedom of opinion as a pretext for attacking the rights of others, especially the right to life" (italics mine, n.2)


Finally, in a recent discussion with the bishops from Brazil, the Holy Father told them, "Remind your faithful that conscience is an exacting tribunal, whose judgment must always be conformed with the moral norms revealed by God and proposed with authority by the Church."


The authors also wrote in yesterday's editorial, "Certainly Catholics have a responsibility to give careful and prayerful consideration to official Catholic teaching. But when that teaching proves incomplete, or unconvincing, Catholics have both the right and responsibility to follow their well-formed consciences." Three comments need to be made here. 1) Catholics must give more than token "careful and prayerful consideration to official Catholic teaching." As The Catechism makes clear, citing Vatican II's Lumen gentium n. 25, when the Church teaches infallibly on a matter regarding faith or morals (and the teaching on abortion has been infallibly taught), that teaching is to be "adhered to with the obedience of faith" (cf. 891, italics mine). 2) Church teaching on the matter of abortion is hardly "incomplete". And, 3) the evidence amassed by embryologists regarding the beginning of human life from the moment of conception onwards is so overwhelming that no one, using sound reason, should remain "unconvinced." A Catholic person who comes to the judgment that procuring an abortion is a good decision to make for anyone would be seriously in error, and his conscience would be in need of guidance and re­formation


Conclusion: two conclusions seem necessary to make. 1) To choose to have an abortion, i.e., "the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception until birth" (The Gospel of Life, 58) is an action. Actions are not simply "legal" or "illegal." In evaluating an action, I need to take into account what is it that is being done, what are the motives, and what are the consequences of the action (foreseeable as they may be). If the action to be done is intrinsically evil (i.e., always and all the time), and in the case of abortion that is so, then the motives and consequences are of no import for making a moral evaluation. A person who maintains the opposite view, namely that abortion is a good action, must confront an overwhelming amount of evidence that demonstrates that the action being chosen is one in which a human being is destroyed. This must then be reconciled with the laws that we have in this country that explicitly forbid the killing of innocent human beings. 2) As regards those whom we elect to political office to promote, defend and safeguard the common good, we have a responsibility to use our reason to make a judgment as to which person gives us the best indicators that he truly believes human life . all human life, and not only certain special interest groups . is dignified and worthy of respect. I again make the simple statement that either all human beings are persons, and therefore, have rights (first of which is the right to life, without which there is nothing else to be gained), or else only some human beings are persons and have rights. If the latter is true, who decides which ones "make the grade", and what "grading scale" is used to make the determination? If a person does not believe human life is worthy of respect . always, all the time, everywhere . then why in the world would we want him to be in charge of defending and making our laws?


Let us continue to pray with faith for our leaders, both in the State and in the Church. We have before us an enormous task, namely, that of building "a civilization of love." It is, most likely, going to take decades to undo what the last three decades have done. This task of ours is not a merely human one; it cannot be done without the Lord's grace and His power at work in our hearts. Let us determine to form our own consciences on this, and other critical matters; let us make every effort to become better educated so that we can help others see the reasons abortion is so harmful; let us pray and fast, for the conversion of leaders; let us pray and fast for courage for ourselves; and, above all, let us pray and fast for charity . not the flimsy, fluffy, disposable "love" this world espouses, but true Christian charity . without which everything we do is in vain (cf. 1 Cor 13).


God's peace to you,
Fr. John

[Father John Riccardo, St John Center for Youth and Family]

at any particular moment, anything could be going through my head.

For some reason, everything I come to my Create New Entry screen, I have the urge to type something stupid like "Monkeys flying out of my butt" or "Up your nose with a rubber hose."

No particular reason, save most times I have nothing interesting to share, but that probably has to do with the fact that I am feeling pretty shallow right now.

the two things that have been the priority of my mind is beating my personal best time to finish Super Mario 64 (I thought it would be much harder than it actually is - but that can be attributed to the fact that I still sort of remember where a lot of things are) and getting our house fixed up before Lorie sees how trashed it is... er... not so much trashed as unorganized...

I cannot converse about current events or what is on the television since I really do not care at the moment.

blah.

that is it on this. I will back post this, because it is just blah.