Posted in November, 2008
..says Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. The cardinal stated 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”) has cut off the church from many of the people who most need its advice about human sexuality. It may be time, he said, for a “new vision” for sexuality and birth control. 
The encyclical, which teaches that condoms, birth control pills, IUDs and other “artificial” birth control methods are morally wrong, caused a large number of people to stop taking the church’s views seriously, Martini said. “Serious damage was done.”
Martini, an 81-year-old Jesuit and former archbishop of Milan, made the comments in a book-length interview, Nighttime Conversations in Jerusalem: On the Risk of Faith (Conversazioni notturne a Gerusalemme. Sul rischio della fede was published by Mondadori, Milano, 2008)
He did not address specifically the morality of contraception but suggested that the question might be better approached from a more pastoral perspective.
Today, he said, the church might be able to adopt “a new vision” and indicate “a better way” than it did in Humanae Vitae. “The church would regain credibility and competence,” he said.
“Knowing how to admit one’s errors and the limitations of one’s previous viewpoints is a sign of the greatness of soul and confidence,” he said.
Cardinal Martini said the church should take a positive approach to human sexuality, with less emphasis on prohibitions. “Whatever the church affirms, it should be supported by many people, by conscientious in love,” he said.
On a personal note, I was a teenager in the years following Vatican II, and can still feel the reverberations of that era. The cardinal is right when he states the church lost a lot of its credibility after Humane Vitae. More, I think, then even the global priest-child sex abuse crisis of the 1990s.
It is my belief the church lost its footing in the 1960s with its rigidity over birth control and also its dismissal of the Latin Mass.
It has yet to regain it, primarily because of the attitude of the Vatican towards sex and sexuality and their hostility to other voices who question their reasoning. Celibate clerics continue to run the discussion to the exclusion of everyone else. Why are they surprised when no one pays attention?
I believe it was a mistake to toss the Latin Mass out the door so fast. It’s abrupt departure shook a foundation of Catholic identity. The church could have eased the transition by making the Latin Mass more accessible and participatory, and made some accommodation for national, ethic and local customs and observances.
But, that kind of leadership requires flexiblity, listening skills and a willingness to include the laity in decision-making; qualities never much in evidence in the institutional church in that or any other period.
On the subject of birth control, both teenagers AND their parents–even those stoutly against premarital sex (like my parents!)–thought the church’s stance stupid and delusional.
Cardinal Martini is right–the church lost the respect of a generation of Catholics and the strict adherence of the rest. People continued to identify as Catholic, but stopped paying attention to rules, regulations and sins they didn’t agree with. They stopped because they didn’t have any basis in real life, and they weren’t based on common sense.
On the issue of birth control, no family was going to wind up with 8 or 9 children, out of 14 or 15 pregnancies, just because some pampered, out-of-touch celibate decreed it was God’s way.
By the decade of the ’60s, many Catholic men who served in WWII and Korea had gone to college on the GI bill and wanted their children to have a college education. Parents wanted the “better things” in life for their families. This meant having smaller families.
Parents, adults, also had more time and opportunity for sex, and wanted that sex to be a good lusty romp, not a mystical union.
The availability of birth control was the biggest boost to a good sex life. Couples could have sex a lot more, whenever they wanted. Birth control allowed couples to have sex without worrying about unplanned pregancies. This was especially important to women, who always had the fear of pregancy to contend with every time she had intercourse. Not having to worry about getting pregnant was a major boost to a woman’s enjoyment of sex.
The pope should be made aware good sex and lots of it makes for happy Catholics. Not the opposite.
Yes, a “new vision” is needed for the church on sex and sexuality. After 40 years, it’s time to admit Humanae Vitae was a mistake, and move forward to a Catholic view sexuality that is reality-based and natural; not artificial in its prohibitions and fears.
For many years December was the month I used to grit my teeth and endure hearing ”Happy Holiday!” “Season’s Greetings”–anything but “Merry Christmas.” Not anymore.
For the past several years, whenever someone offers a “Happy Holidays” I smile and say back to them, “You can wish me a Merry Christmas.”
For too many years merchants have co-opted Christmas to move their inventory and run up the sales figures for the last quarter.
With each passing year Christmas decorations, lights and bunting go up earlier and earlier. It’s not even Thanksgiving and already fake Holiday/Christmas decorations are up in Penn Station in New York. Advent hasn’t arrived, but plastic reindeer and Frosty the Snowman are blinking away and loudspeakers blast out tinny versions of Jingle Bells and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. I have Brenda Lee going off in my head for the rest of the day.
Some Christians, afraid, anxious and guilty that non-Christians might feel “left out” and have their feelings hurt by Christmas, try to minimize the religious meaning of the celebration and turn it into some kind of secular gift-giving holiday.
These people need to get over it.
One of the most breath-taking, touching, and eloquent defenses of Christmas came in the 1965 Charles Schultz special: A Charlie Brown Christmas. When Charlie Brown wonders aloud if he really knows the meaning of Christmas, Linus quotes this verse from Luke:
“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
And that is the message of Christmas: That God so loved us, he came to be with us, share our life, and bring us the warmth of His love.
May that message continue to shine–brightly–through all the seasonal glitter. 
The late John Paul II was wounded in a 1982 knife attack. The would-be assassin, a priest, attacked the pope during a visit to Fatima Square in Portugal. The priest was opposed to the reforms adopted by the church after Vatican II.
The pope kept the injury secret. He carried on with the trip without disclosing his wound.
The incident is described in a new film, Testimony, and is based on the 2007 book of the same name by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope’s long-time secretary and friend. Cardinal Dziwisz accompanied Karol Wojtyla from his time in Poland until his last days in the Vatican. The film is a testimony of John Paul II’s life, presenting many new facts and interpretations. 
The film premiered at the Vatican on October 16, 2008. It is narrated by actor Michael York.
Dziwisz, who is now cardinal of Krakow, Poland, was John Paul’s private secretary and closest aide for nearly 40 years, including all his 27 years as pontiff.
“Today I can say what up to now we have kept secret,” Dziwisz said in the move. “That priest wounded the Holy Father..When we got back to the room there was blood.”
The attack occured on May 12, 1982, when Juan Fernandez Krohn lunged at John Paul with a bayonet during a ceremony in the shrine of Fatima in Portugal. The Pope had gone to the shrine to give thanks for surviving a gunshot wound from Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981.
Krohn was an ultra conservative priest, and former member of the Society of Saint Pius X. He was expelled from that group because he openly proclaimed Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre opposition to Pope John Paul II was too weak. 
Krohn was expelled from Portugal in 1985 after serving half of a six year jail sentence.
Gay clerics and those rumored to be–nuns, priests, bishops, cardinals, monks, abbots, even popes–have been with us always. Some were celibate. Others were not. Most were discreet. Others celebrated their love and loves. One of them was Alcuin of York.
Alcuin, also known as Alcuinus (Latin) and Ealhwine (Saxon) was born in York, in Northumbria, England in 735 A.D. 
At the invitation of Charlemagne, Alcuin headed the king’s school for his children at Aachen from 782 to 796. He was a leading figure at court during that time. He wrote many theological and dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical works and a number of poems.
Alcuin was made abbot of Saint Martin’s at Tours in 796, where he remained until his death on May 19, 804. He is considered among the most important architects of the Carolingian Renaissance.
John Boswell, in Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (1980) writes:
“A distinctly erotic element…is notable in the circle of friends presided over by Alcuin at the court of Charlemagne. This group included some of the most brilliant scholars of the day (Theodule of Orleans, Anglibert, Einhard, et al,), but the most erotic element subsisted principally between Alcuin and his pupils. Intimates of this circle of masculine friendship were known to each other by pet names, most of them derived from classical allusions, many from Vergil’s Ecologues..The prominence of love in Alcuin’s writings, all of which are addressed to other males, is striking…”
One of the most famous poems is addressed to a student whom Alcuin called “Daphnis” and laments the departure of another student, “Dodo,” who is referred to in the poem as their “cuckoo“. 
Boswell explains that “One expects hyperbole in poetry, but even in Alcuin’s prose correspondence there is an element which can scarcely be called anything but passionate. He wrote to a friend (a bishop…)
‘I think of your love and friendship with such sweet memories, reverend bishop, that I long for that lovely time when I may be able to clutch the neck of your sweetness with the fingers of my desires. Alas, if only it were granted to me, as it was to Habakkuk (Daniel 14:32-38), to be transported to you, how I would sink into your embraces,..how much would I cover, with tightly pressed lips, not only your eyes, ears and mouth, but also every finger and toe, not once but many a time.”
“Love has penetrated my heart with its flame,” wrote Alcuin to Arno, Bishop of Salzburg (c. 750-821). “Neither sea nor land, hills nor forest, nor even the Alps can stand in its way or hinder it from always licking at your inmost parts, good father, or from bathing your heart, my beloved, with tears…Let us seek the delights and ever-enduring realms of heaven with our whole heart, mind, and hand. The blessed hall of heaven never separates friends; a heart warmed by love always has what it loves. Therefore, father, abduct me with your prayers, I beg you (precibus rape me). Then our love will never be estranged.”
Surely, Alcuin was one of the first Catholic religious figures to blend gay sexuality and spirituality in his writing, relationships and life.
Lori and I celebrate our 21st anniversary today.
Our love and respect for each other has grown over the years and we are still very much in love.
Like other gay couples, we have have said “I Do” to each other several times. We started off with a domestic partnership in New York City on April 8, 1993; a marriage with a nondemoninational minister in Hawaii on August 27, 1998; and a wedding in Massachusetts with a justice of the peace on August 15, 2008. We celebrate all of them with a fancy dinner and nuzzling, but our biggest anniversary, even beyond our legal wedding, is the day of our first date – November 14, 1987.
The amount of “I Dos” we have experienced started to border on the humorous to both us and our families. “How many times are you going to do this,” Lori’s mother asked after our Massachusetts wedding announcement. “Until we get a toaster,” I quipped back. Lori’s younger brother and his wife and daughters surprised us with a beautiful toaster after our vows in front of the justice of the peace. 
Like other couples, we want the emotional, cultural and one day, I hope, religious affirmation of our commitment of a life together until death do us part. We also want all the legal protections and economic benefits of marriage. And yes, there is a seriousness, dignity and closeness that comes with the commitment of marriage.
On the front page of the October 30, 2008 edition of the Wall Street Journal was the article, “Why Just One Wedding Isn’t Enough For Some Gay Couples.” A lot of what other couples go through resonated in our own relationship.
“Daniel McNeil and Patrick Canavan joke they’ve been married four times–to each other. The “I dos” started with a Washington, DC church wedding in 1998. Since then, the two men, both 46 years old, have chased evolving laws across the U.S. to secure a civil union in Vermont, a domestic partnership in the District of Columbia and in August, a marriage in California.”
“Mr. Canavan met Mr. McNeil, a bubbly former Franciscan brother and math teacher, in 1994 at a retreat for gay and lesbian Catholics. They moved in together and got engaged but wanted to demonstrate their commitment publicly. In October 1998, the grooms, in tuxedos, held a Catholic wedding ceremony at an Episcopal church congenial to gay marriages in Washington. The pair picked readings from the Bible and exchanged rings blessed by their Catholic priest, before family and 200 friends. They went to Spain on their honeymoon.”
“It was probably the best day of my life,” Mr. McNeil recalls, speaking of the marriage.
“When California allowed same-sex marriages in May, Messrs. McNeil and Canavan jumped at the chance. In early August they flew to San Francisco with their son and daughter for a ceremony with a few close friends in City Hall. The children acted as witnesses.”
“Mr. McNeil says the wedding felt more like a 10th anniversary. It doesn’t confer any additional rights for the couple back home in Washington. But Mr. McNeil says he now feels emboldened to check the “married” box on things like insurance and health forms.”
Lori and I are starting to say “wife” in describing each other instead of “partner” or “spouse.” It’s still a little uncomfortable, but as we say it we are getting used to it. I checked “Married” for the first time in filling out forms at a new dentist.
We are also in the process of adding each other as the beneficiary to our pensions. As unmarried partners, we would not have been able to claim this benefit. The additional monthly check will help the surviving parter to be more financially secure – peace of mind and assurance we are happy and grateful to have as we grow old together.
Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood by the Congregation for Catholic Education was released at the Vatican by October 30, 2008. The document was approved by Pope Benedict XVI in June.
The document says that in determining whether a candidate for the priesthood has the ability to live a celibate life, the candidate’s sexual orientation should be evaluated in order to determine that uncertain sexual identity or “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” are not present. 
This instruction appears to be the next step to weed out gay or bisexual seminarians. The first salvo was the 2005 document, Vatican Instruction: Priesthood Candidates and Homosexuality.
“The church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those that practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture,’” the November 29, 2005 document stated.
“Such persons,” it said, “find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women.” It also went on to say, “It would be gravely dishonest for a candidate to hide his own homosexuality in order to proceed, despite everything, toward ordination.”
At the press conference marking the release of the new document, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Education, was asked about the 2005 document, specifically whether a homosexually oriented man who was nevertheless committed to celibacy could be ordained a priest. 
He answered: “The candidate does not necessarily have to practice homosexuality. He can even be without sin. But if he has this deeply seated tendency, he cannot be admitted to priestly ministry precisely because of the nature of the priesthood, in which a spiritual paternity is carried out.”
Cardinal Grocholewski was also asked why, if a man with strong heterosexual tendencies but who is celibate can be ordained, the same could not be true of a man with homosexual tendencies.
His answer: “Because it’s not simply a question of observing celibacy as such. In this case, it would be a heterosexual tendency, a normal tendency. In a certain sense, when we ask why Christ reserved the priesthood to men, we speak of this spiritual paternity, and maintain that homosexuality is a type of deviation, a type of irregularity…
“Therefore, it is a type of wound in the exercise of the priesthood, in forming relations with others. And precisely for this reason we say that something isn’t right in the pysche of such a man. We don’t simply talk about the ability to abstain from these kinds of relations.”
The interviews with Cardinal Grocholewski are actually worse than the document itself. If his remarks reflected the logic of the document, they degrate and demean the good men who feel called to minister to the community as priests, but would be banned from doing so because their homosexual orientation disqualifies them from “spiritual paternity.”
What is alarming about this document is the intent to separate gay men from priestly ministry not because of celibacy issues, but because being homosexual in and of itself is seen as a psychological defect and as a barrier to form relations in a “mature” way with both men and women.
I can only hope this documents drops through a very wide safety net, so no good men are lost to the priesthood because they are gay or bisexual.
If anything, priests and seminarians should have peers and spiritual directors they can talk freely with about their sexual feelings, attractions, and loneliness without fear of repercussion.
This document seems to encourage the opposite. A step back to the pre-sex abuse days of silence.
One of the most fascinating, but least mentioned stories in the Bible is about King Saul and the Witch of Endor. The spectre of the prophet Samuel rising from the ground to confront the king has to be one of the creepiest, horrifying scenes in any literature–Bible or pulp fiction. 
The Canaanite Witch of Endor appears in the First Book of Samuel, chapter 28:4-25. She was an oracle, a woman “who possesses a talisman” though which she called up the ghost of the recently deceased prophet Samuel at the demand of King Saul of Israel.
After Samuel’s death in Ramah, Saul had driven all the necromancers from Israel. Then, in a bitter irony, Saul sought out the witch, anonymously and in disguise, only after he had received no answer from God from dreams, prophets or the Urim and Thummim as to his best course of action against the assembled forces of the Philistines. Samuel’s ghost offered no advice, but predicted Saul’s downfall as king. 
The Witch of Endor had a string of ancestors that stretched back over 10,000 years before her fateful seance.
Israeli archaeologist, Dr. Leore Grosman, and her team from Hebrew University discovered the remains of a 12,000 year old witch in a tomb in northern Israel. The woman lived at the time of the prehistoric Natufian culture, an ancient community that lived in the region 10,000 years before Jesus. 
The witch was around 45 years old when she died. She was petite, and had an asymmetrical appearance due to a spinal condition or injury that would have affected her gait, causing her to limp or drag her foot.
The tomb, located at Hilazon Tachtit in western Galilee, contained a vast number of grave offerings. Among them were 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard, the wing tip of a golden eagle, the tail of a dow, two marten skulls, the forearm of a wild boar and a human foot.
It would be interesting to study how women’s abilities for diviniation and spiritual intercession went from high respect in the Natufian society to persecution by King Saul and clerics in medieval Christianity.
Was it the evolution to a male God figure calculated? Did male saints and male religious authorities co-opt religious intercession and power roles to reside only in their own gender?
An estimated 54% of Catholics voted for Obama for President. 46% did not. They voted for the McCain/Palin ticket or someone else. Catholics called the election again, as they have done for the past eight or nine. 
In spite of 50 dioceses issuing “pro-life” voting statements, every anti-abortion initiative was voted down, and the presidential election went to Barak Obama.
Here’s why I think McCain lost Catholic voters:
1. The economy
2. The economy
3. The economy
4. The $700 billion bailout (however necessary) of banks and other financial institutions
5. Doubts about Sarah Palin, combined with John McCain’s age
6. President Bush’s unpopularity
7. Ethical issues surrounding the mortgage crisis
8. Unhappiness with the overall direction of the country
Catholic voters voted for change. What can the bishops learn from this?
Focusing solely on abortion and to some degree, same-sex marriage, is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when the passengers are heading for the lifeboats. They are not the primary concerns of most Catholic voters. The economy is.
The bishops have not regained, and may not for decades, the prestige and respect they lost in the clerical sex abuse scandal. Making pronouncements from on high is not an effective strategy. Meeting people where they are is.
Many liberal Catholics, myself included, are not pro-abortion. But because conservative politicians are unattractive on many other levels, I can’t vote for them on single issue platforms. Instead, I prefer to vote for candidates that promote alternatives to unwanted pregnancies. This is another way of addressing the same problem: abortion.
“Unwed mother” no longer carries the social stigma it did decades ago. When teenagers get pregnant, they don’t automatically give up their baby for adoption or end up in an unwanted marriage. Or get an abortion. Many of them want to have and keep their baby. The problem is – they have no money or resources to do so. Abortion becomes necessary.
Catholic bishops and Catholic conservatives can stop a lot of abortions by pushing elected representatives to fund programs for single mothers (and fathers) to get financial support for housing, food, pre-natal care, health care, education/job training, and child care.
Quo Vadis, bishops? Are you serious about making an impact on abortions, or do you just want to hear your own voice?
Quo Vadis, bishops? Be realistic. People aren’t going to give up sex. Kids and adults take chances and use nothing or don’t use birth control and get pregnant. Then what? If the woman doesn’t have the resources to give birth and raise the child, what does she do?
Abortion is a moral issue. But it is also an issue of resources.
Will U.S. bishops continue to focus on sex, and make thundering statements about “intrinsic moral evils” and huff and puff and threaten liberal Catholic politicians, and leave it go at that?
Will they also come after conservative Catholic politicians and their allies–threaten them with the loss of communion, status and photo-ops–if they do not do everything in their power to help pregnant girls and women who want to keep their babies and not be consigned to a life in poverty?
Or, will they stop the threats, roll up their sleeves, and live Pro-Life by example.
I suggest every bishop, starting with the 50 who made Pro-Life statements in this election, dedicate a portion of their endowments to support all unwed women who want to keep their child. Bishops can use this money to fund diocesan social service programs, and act as a “safety net” for when the government falls short.
A focus of the annual diocesan parish tithe should be directed to funding programs for these women and their children.
When serious money is on the table, I’ll know they’re serious.
Yesterday morning conservative Archbishop Charles Chaput and I were both a little glum.
Archbishop Chaput is an articulate and forceful anti-abortion spokesman. I am just-married, same-sex marriage advocate.
Over morning coffee and papers we were greeted with some good news and some bad news. 
- Democratic candidate Barak Obama, and his Catholic vice president, Joe Biden, won the presidential election.
- Colorado voters had soundly defeated a ballot measure that would have defined life as beginning at conception. The constitutional amendment would have defined a person to include “any human being from the moment of fertilization.”
- California voters banned same-sex marriage. The referendum called for the California constitution to be amended by adding the phrase that “Only marriage between a man and woman is valid or recognized in California.”
- California voters failed to approve a measure that would require doctors to notify parents or guardian 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor.
- Arizona voters banned same-sex marriage.
- Florida voters banned same-sex marriage.
- Washington State voted to permit doctor-assisted suicide.
- South Dakota defeated a ban on abortion.
- Arkansas voters approved a ban on couples, who live together without being married, from adopting or fostering children. This impacts straight couples, but was primarily aimed at gay and lesbian couples.
Now what? We need to mourn, and find fresh resolve. St. Benedict points a way: Orare et laborare. Pray and work. Pray and work. Start with prayer, and then work.
And when the work seems too hard, arduous, demeaning, and hopeless; pray for strength and grace and a sense of humor to get over the rough spots. And then work.
Fr. Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus, must be spinning around in his grave! His Knights have gotten into politics, publicly fighting one another over supporting a party whose discrimination and distain for Irish and Italian immigrants caused the Knights to come into being 120 years ago. 
In the late 1800s, discrimination against American Catholics was widespread. Many Catholics struggled to find work and ended up in inferno-like mills. An injury or the death of the wage earner would leave a family penniless. The grim threat of chronic homelessness and even starvation could fast become realities. Called to action in 1882 by his sympathy for these suffering people, Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus, an organization that has helped to save countless families from the indignity of destitution.
The current Supreme Knight in the KofC is Carl Anderson. He is also the author of A Civilization of Love. 
Carl Anderson’s partisan remarks about Catholic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Delware) ignited a revolt inside the Knights, and lead to the creation of Knights for Obama. Knights for Obama objected to Anderson’s attempt to deliver the Knights and their families en masse into the Republican camp. They are also speaking out forcefully for the Knights to address all the issues under Catholic social teaching – not just cherry-picked to align with the Republican party.
Up until this election, I always had a rather benign but fond view of “the Knights”– a fraternal association of Catholic men who did a number of things together from their storefront meeting places: raise money for mentally and physically challenged children through solicitation at stoplights; sponsor spaghetti dinners and breakfasts for charity, and provide an escort to the bishop in some very fancy costumes. In short, men getting together to drink and play cards, and also protect and provide for the most defenseless among us: children.
I visited the Knights of Columbus website. The only initiatives they mention on their home page have to do with abortion and same-sex marriage. They also prominently market their insurance policies, and Carl Anderson photo-ops with bishops and the Pope.
What is not on the Knights’ home page are charitable giving options for children.
There is no mention of the millions of children without health care. The children that are hungry. The children that are homeless. Or in foster care. Or neglected. Or have drug problems. Or coping alone with stress in the home. Or boys and girls on their own, and making a livelihood via prostitition.
Why is that? Where is the voice and the clout of the national organization for these children?
The Knights can and should speak out against abortion. But the Knights are a Catholic organization, not a marketing auxilliary of the Republican party or just those social concerns that don’t cost money.
The Knights need to have the guts and fortitude to challenge all politicians and parties on behalf of all children – born as well as unborn. Children that are here…not just egg and embryo.
For example, a year ago, President Bush vetoed at $35 billion expansion of the current State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Under the vetoed plan, government-sponsored health coverage would have been expanded from 6.6 million people, mostly children, to include an additional 4 million kids and 700,000 adults. Currently, 9 percent, or 6 million, of the 43 million uninsured Americans are children under 18. SCHIP is available to people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but are not able to afford private insurance.
Contrast that funding against the $150 billion annually for the Iraqi war. And the billions more in energy company profits the government doesn’t even make a feeble attempt to tax.
The Knights don’t mention human costs of the Iraqi war, and all the children it has helped to turn into refugees–in particular, Christian Iraqis. They don’t rise to defend the Iraqi children that have been killed, wounded, and maimed in this military venture; the casualties to pregnant women somehow weren’t noted in the Defense of Life materials and ads.
There is also no mention of the 18, 19, 20 year old conscripts from America, mostly poor or working class, that have died in Iraqi or been wounded in this conflict. A lot of them enlisted to get money for college or training for a better life.
Many of these young men and women are immigrants, just like the people who inspired Father McGivney a long time ago.
