Q. I personally don’t believe too many women’s lives are endangered when choosing an abortion. It also seems to me that our Church says if such a circumstance happens during an abortion or a regular delivery, doesn’t the Church rule the baby should be saved first? That seems to conflict with what Mrs. Clinton believes. — D.L.H., Iowa.
A. No, the Church does not teach that the baby should be saved first if there is a danger to the life or health of the mother. The Church teaches that every medical effort should be made to save both of them. “Medical science has made truly amazing advances over the last thirty years,” said Dr. Fred E. Mecklenburg in an essay in the 1972 book Abortion and Social Justice. “As a result, it is now extremely rare for any pregnancy to be so hazardous to the life of the mother as to necessitate abortion” (p. 38).
He said that if the “very rare” situation should arise, “it poses one of the most difficult decisions in medicine and always represents an unpleasant endeavor. When the death of one of your patients is the only alternative available, then the decision truly weighs heavily. The doctor never really has to decide, however, whether to save the life of the mother or that of the baby. The choice is whether to do everything possible to save the life of the mother, or to risk the death of both your patients. Fortunately, these situations arise very infrequently” (p. 39).
Q. I am not able to understand Pope Francis saying that the Muslim religion is a religion of peace since the Koran distinctly and clearly sanctions the killing of non-Muslims. It appears that suicide bombers were and are devout Muslims. — R.B.K., via e-mail.
A. We don’t understand this either since Muslims have waged war on numerous countries over the past 1,400 years, conquering many of them and killing an estimated 270 million people. Some would like to think that Islam is a religion of peace and would have us believe that the word “Islam” means “peace,” when in fact it means “submission.”
Islam is not simply a religion; it is a totalitarian ideology with religious aspects. Like the Communists in the last century, it has its own particular meaning for such words as “peace,” “justice,” “freedom,” and “equality.” Unfortunately, in their lexicon these nice-sounding words refer to that period when all the world is dominated by Islam. We often hear people pleading for tolerance for Islam, but when was the last time you heard Muslims pleading for tolerance for Christianity? There may be moderate Muslims, but there is nothing moderate about Islam.
Yes, there are those who quote the passage in the Koran (5:32) where Muhammad says that those who kill a human being, “except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind,” but ignore the passage that follows (5:33): “Those that make war against God and His Apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or be banished from the land.”
That seventh-century declaration is being implemented right now with the murders of literally millions of Christians (many by crucifixion) since 1975 by Muslims in Africa and Asia.
In his book Christianity, Islam and Atheism, William Kilpatrick said that “an excessive emphasis on tolerance and sensitivity has resulted in a dangerous knowledge gap for Christians. Moreover, when Christians put tolerance above justice, they harm not only themselves, but Muslims as well.” He said that “Christians need to ask whether the current conciliatory approach to Islam is just toward all those Muslims who suffer under the barbarities of sharia law. As has often been noted, the main victims of Islam are Muslims.”
Furthermore, Kilpatrick asked, “should Christians be more worried about offending the sensibilities of some Muslims, or should they be concerned about the men, women, and children who are oppressed by Islamic laws? Tolerance is fine up to a point, but as Thomas Mann observed, ‘Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil’” (p. xii).
In an article in the October 18, 2016 issue of Crisis Magazine, Kilpatrick illustrated the problem again by discussing Georgetown University’s Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). This center, which is financed by the Muslim government of Saudi Arabia, published a report in September criticizing “Islamophobia” in the Catholic media.
At the same time, said Kilpatrick, “one Islamic terrorist planted two bombs in Manhattan and several in New Jersey, another stabbed ten people in a mall in Minnesota, and a third shot five people in a mall in Washington State. Meanwhile, thousands of Christians and other minorities are being slaughtered or sold into slavery by Islamists in the Middle East and Africa. And yet the folks at Georgetown are worried about ‘Islamophobia?’”
He said that “for the Islamophiliacs, the only way you can prove you’re not an ‘Islamophobe’ is to praise Islam to the skies — as the people at ACMCU continually do.”
Q. Is it okay to donate on World Mission Sunday? They say that through the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, they support the work of the Mission Church. I always supported the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, but has that changed? I just read where the Catholic Relief Services gave condoms to the African countries. I will not donate until I hear from you. I am not certain what “Catholic” charities to donate to anymore. — E.C., via e-mail.
A. The Society for the Propagation of the Faith and Catholic Relief Services are two different entities. The first was founded in France in 1822 to provide support for Catholic missions in the vast diocese of Louisiana, which then extended from the Florida Keys to Canada.
It now promotes prayer and financial support for missionary activity in 1,100 dioceses in Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and remote regions of Latin America. Its central office has been located in Rome since 1922, when it was designated as a “pontifical” mission society, and it has three affiliated apostolates — the Missionary Childhood Association, the Society of St. Peter the Apostle, and the Missionary Union of Priests & Religious. We see no problem in donating to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
The same is not true, however, for Catholic Relief Services, which was established by the U.S. Catholic Bishops in 1943 to assist refugees in war-torn Europe. The agency expanded to other parts of the world in the 1950s and eventually opened offices in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Its goal, according to the CRS website, is to provide relief in the wake of natural disasters and “to seek ways to help people in the developing world break the cycle of poverty through community-based, sustainable development initiatives,” including “agricultural initiatives, community banks, health, education, and clean water projects.”
Since the early 2000s, CRS has developed what it calls Integral Human Development, “which promotes the good of every person and the whole person. IHD, as found in Catholic social teaching, supports the ability of each individual to realize his or her full human potential in the context of just and peaceful relationships, a thriving environment, and solidarity with others. IHD is the sustained growth that everyone has a right to enjoy and represents an individual’s cultural, physical, natural, economic, political, social, and spiritual wholeness.”
While CRS undoubtedly does some good work assisting those in need, it also reportedly has violated Catholic social teaching by facilitating the distribution of more than two million units of contraceptives and abortifacients into the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 2006 and 2010.
According to a report by the Lepanto Institute, CRS partnered with the U.S.-funded Project AXxes to distribute the abortion-causing drugs Depo-Provera and Lo-Femenal, intrauterine devices (IUDs), male and female condoms, and sterilization kits.
A report published by IMA World Health in 2014 said that “the provision of high quality, integrated, and accessible family planning services was another key objective of Project AXxes. Family planning (FP) interventions in Project AXxes are focused on promoting birth spacing and avoiding unwanted pregnancies to improve maternal health and child well-being.”
Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute, who had previously documented abuses in CRS programs in Madagascar and Kenya, said in a statement that “the AXxes program reports are deeply troubling. The reports appear to show that CRS was involved with the storage and distribution of abortifacient contraceptives. If it is true that CRS was complicit with the provision of abortifacient contraceptives, it would be a great cause for scandal for the faithful.”
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