Armenians Prepare to Abandon Historic Churches

Dadivank Monastery

With the impending encroachment of Azerbaijani forces, Christians in the Karabakh region of Armenia are now torching their homes and removing crosses from their churches as they await the inevitable arrival of their enemies.

Prominent amongst these is the monastery at Dadivank. The monastery was constructed between 1000 AD and 1300. After retrieving the church in 1994, Armenians had carried out extensive renovations upon it, to its various frescoes especially.

Now, despite defiance, the bells, the stonework and the frescoes are being transported to Armenia for safekeeping.

This is a sad time for the Armenian people and for all Christians. It is yet another reminder of where we are headed as a world, with non Christians becoming increasingly militant and intolerant towards our existence. It’s very important to keep tuned out from mainstream media lest we think that their views are reflective of reality across the world.

Irish Virus Experts Hoping to Invent New Date for Christmas

We gave up Easter. We delayed Communions. We held off on Confirmations.

We left cemeteries empty at the beginning of November instead of praying near the remains of our loved ones and laying flowers for them.

We entered Level 5 restrictions again, assured that it would allow us to have a normal Christmas.

Now, we face a whole new level of brazen failure to fulfil their promises.

Professor Tomas Ryan of Trinity College was speaking on Newstalk this morning and stated the following,

‘ I think we can return to a normality that is quite like life right now in most of Australia by early January, which would mean Level One or Level Zero restrictions by January, if we get rid of this now.

One way of doing this would be to delay Christmas until the end of January and have a real Christmas and a real party then.”

The haughtiness required to think that you can change centuries of tradition on a whim. Continuing, Professor Ryan explained himself: ‘I don’t think we have been communicated reasonable expectations from the Government on what our Christmas is going to be like.

It is certainly not going to be anything like the Christmases we normally have anyway. The important thing is, we are all in lockdown now, we are paying a heavy price anyway and we want to make sure we get the right benefit from it and we won’t be getting that if we have another lockdown in January.’

Modern man has become so accustomed to thinking that he is immortal, that his fear of death has propelled him to forget to hold to things that make this life worth living. If we take this advice and cancel Christmas, we can guarantee you that you won’t get Christmas at the end of January. We were told in March and April that banning services for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter was the shortcut to restoring normality, yet we haven’t had normality restored. Even as Gaelic football games are allowed, school is allowed and journalists are allowed to travel to their studios.

Catholics in Dublin Pray Rosary in Phoenix Park

Catholics in Dublin gathered at the Papal Cross in the Phoenix Park last night to pray the Rosary on the eve of All Saints Day.

The event comes after weeks of Masses being shut down by the Irish government, despite no evidence that Mass had led to a single outbreak of coronavirus.

Those praying carried a statue of Our Lady as they gathered around candles in the darkness of the Halloween night.

Antifa Torch Two Churches in Santiago

One of the most appalling of the many appalling things regarding the annus horribilis that is 2020, has been the rise of violent anti Catholic thuggery by Antifa all over the world.

Often defending themselves as ‘Anti Fascist Action', Antifa are actually a violent Communist group who work on behalf of corporations to squash opposition to such Globalist pet projects as mass migration, abortion and technocracy. In recent years, they have enjoyed political protection from some as highly connected as United States Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who even went so far as to bail out members of the terrorist group when they had been arrested.

In Santiag, Chile these past 48 hours, the terrifying reminders of 1930s Spain have been on full display for all to see. Parroquia de la Asuncion and Iglesia de San Francisco de Borja were both torched by Antifa members who posed for photographs in front of the building to mock Catholics.

The crowd laughed and jeered as one of the spires came tumbling down on each church as journalists around the world scrambled to try to paint the protests as being otherwise peaceful.

One female Antifa member posed inside the burnt Cathedral, a gesture designed to demoralise Catholics, just as the images of Communists digging up the dead bodies of nuns and priests in the Spanish Civil War was. We should not be demoralised however. As with those images, it needs to be a reminder of the sheer depravity of the evil that we are dealing with.

The Chilean government, for their part, have done absolutely nothing to protect Catholics. Please contact your local Chilean Embassy and let them know how you feel.

Carlo Acutis: A Model of Faith for the Digital Age

When the images of Carlo Acutis's body were beamed across the world last week, there were a number of divergent reactions. For Protestant prolifers in the United States, it inspired feelings of revulsion, many of them failing to comprehend the enormity of the implications that resulted from asserting the holiness of the human body itself. For others, Catholic and non Catholic, there was the common astonishment that we were being presented with a boy about to be beatified in a tracksuit after earning his life of holiness through the internet.

Acutis died only aged 15 in 2006 from leukemia. The holiness of his life was such that it consisted of the old reliables, he attended Confession each week, he read the lives of the saints and he was devoted to the Rosary. Most importantly, when his illness deteriorated rapidly, he offered it up for Pope Benedict XVI and stated ‘there are those who suffer much more than me’ when asked about his pain.

Strikingly however, he also expressed his love for God online and catalogued Eucharistic miracles on a website that he built himself. For young people today, and some adults, the internet has become an impediment to their religious life, enticing them into sins unimaginable without its corrosive influence. Yet for others, the internet has led them to the Traditional Latin Mass, to videos of men like Fulton Sheen, to the great works it Augustine and Aquinas. The internet is a very powerful tool, we can hope and pray that with the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis that people learn to harness its power to spread the glory of our faith.

Euthanasia: Cure Sometimes, Treat Often, Kill Frequently?

Cure sometimes; Treat often; Comfort always; Kill frequently?

A Canadian perspective on Voluntary Euthanasia

As a school-kid I would wait in the car as my father visited house-bound patients in our village. Dad would tell me snippets about the local people whom he admired for their hard-working, honest character. Sometimes he quoted Hippocrates: “Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always!”

I followed Dad’s medical footsteps to University College, Dublin and emigrated to Canada where I have been a rural family physician for over 30 years. Voluntary Euthanasia is the only state-sanctioned homicide routinely occurring across Canada. Between 2016 & 2019, 13,946 Canadians died by Medical Assistance in Dying [MAiD]. Canada has ~38 million people.

Medical Assistance in Dying

After the 2015 Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision was legislated by Parliament in 2016, it was no longer a crime to provide a poison—or to directly kill—a patient meeting the criteria. The vast majority of the ~14,000 cases have been through the direct administration of IV drugs, in other words, by Voluntary Euthanasia [VE]. MAiD includes provisions for Assisted Suicide [AS].

The Supreme Court [SCC] declared sections 241(b) and 14 of the Criminal Code “void insofar as they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of life; and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.”

Their decision was based on the autonomy of the individual and the wish to avoid people suffering ‘intolerable’ pain. They also voiced the fear that sufferers might take their lives prematurely or be incapable of doing so at the time of their choosing.

Human Rights

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says, “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person.”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Importantly, the United Nations defines Human Rights as being "universal and inalienable…everyone is born with and possesses the same rights."

Former President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Baroness Hale of Richmond, commented on the dignity of the individual: “Democracy is founded on the principle that each individual has equal value. Treating some as automatically having less value than others not only causes pain and distress to that person but also violates his or her dignity as a human being.”

Voluntary Euthanasia

As human beings we have free will—The Freedom—to kill ourselves. I believe we do not have a Right to kill ourselves and definitely we do not have a Right to mandate a person or group to kill us on-demand. As human beings we have the responsibility to prevent someone from taking their own life in despair.

Compassion for the appellants in Carter might have blinded the Justices to the dangers of legalizing the intentional killing of a segment of the population—however willing they may be. Curiously the SCC is very opposed to Capital Punishment when the arguments against the Death Penalty hold fast against Euthanasia. MAiD/AS/VE can:

• be coerced,

• kill incompetent people,

• irreversible when applied in error,

• deny the intrinsic value of human life,

• brutalize patients, children, family & friends, providers,

• promote cost reduction through the premature killing of the sick,

•  not be a “treatment”,

• not ascertain those who “deserve” death or not,

• glamourizes death and can cause the Werther Effect (suicide contagion),

• kill the mentally ill rather than treat them appropriately,

• collude with delusions rather than preventing suicide,

• have complications from the administration of toxic medication.

Evidence from Oregon shows the most frequently reported reasons for requesting Assisted Suicide are: “Loss of autonomy (87%); Decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (90%); and Loss of dignity (72%).” Physical pain (or the fear of it) did not even make the top 5 reasons for requesting Assisted Suicide. In addition, the vast majority of Assisted Suicide cases in Oregon in 2019 were white people. The cultural differences need investigation because there were very few Hispanic and Asian recipients and no African-Americans, Pacific Islanders or American Indians.

Another curious statistic from Oregon is that up to 1/3 of those receiving a prescription for the fatal medication never take it. (In a private communication, it appears that few withdraw from MAiD once the application has been approved.) Patently, there is some different dynamic between killing oneself and having another person administer the poison to you.

The march of ‘Progress’

The SCC agreed with the original trial judge: “…that a permissive regime with properly designed and administered safeguards was capable of protecting vulnerable people from abuse and error.” Based on this permissive opinion, Canada mirrored much of the system from the Netherlands where Euthanasia was made legal in the 1970’s. Startling statistics from the Netherlands reported in The Province (Vancouver) showed: “In 1990…2,300 people asked doctors to kill them; 400 asked doctors to provide them with the means to kill themselves; 8,100 died when doctors deliberately gave them an overdose of pain medication to kill them (for which 4,941 patients didn’t consent); 1,040 people died when doctors euthanized them without their knowledge or consent (72 per cent of those never having given any indication they would want their lives terminated).”

There are many egregious cases. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands just exonerated a doctor who ordered the family of an elderly woman to hold her down so he could administer the lethal injection. A Dutch nun was dying painfully of cancer and her physician felt her religion prevented her from agreeing to euthanasia, so he felt both justified and compassionate in ending her life without telling her he was doing so. (Psychiatric Times). The Journal of the Canadian Medical Association has shown that up to 30 per cent of assisted suicides occur without consent in one region of Belgium.

The SCC noted that “minors or persons with psychiatric disorders or minor medical conditions” do not fall within the Carter decision. It is only 4 years since Bill C-14 and yet there are persistent calls to extend MAiD/AS/VE to Mature Minors, for psychiatric illness and by Prior Directive.

Then there is the tough issue of “intolerable suffering”. If, as shown in Oregon, the suffering is primarily “the loss of autonomy, the decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable and loss of dignity” then people with prolonged existential distress will eventually become candidates for MAiD.

MAiD has even become a “therapeutic option.” In 2018, then 42-year-old Roger Foley from Ontario wanted to live despite having a serious neuro-degenerative disease. He was in hospital because he felt the home-care being provided was inadequate. He claims he was offered Euthanasia as the alternative to a forced discharge or the $1,800 per day charge.

If Human Rights as "universal and inalienable…universal because everyone is born with and possesses the same rights…" then logically all Canadians have a “Right to Die”. Suicide-on-Demand will be a disaster for any society.

The Dead don’t complain

By conscripting two caring professions and by making MAiD “A Right”, Parliament and the SCC avoided a lot of opposition to Euthanasia in Canada. A doctor or nurse should not be a MAiD/AS/VE provider but remain the patient’s independent advocate, counsellor and caregiver. We should be a shield against coercion and should minimize the risk of involuntary euthanasia.

Most, if not all, MAiD applicants should have palliative, psychiatric and social services consultations. A difficulty is that here an applicant can refuse all valid treatment (including curative treatment) and still be approved for MAiD.

In light of possibility suicide contagion there should be proper longitudinal studies especially of the young children of MAID recipients. (“New figures from the Netherlands have shown that suicide numbers went up by 34% in that country after assisted suicide was legalized –at a time when the numbers of deaths by suicide fell in neighbouring countries in the same period.”)

Despite the SCC stating: “Nothing in this declaration would compel physicians to provide assistance in dying” there are jurisdictions like Ontario where physicians are required to provide an “effective referral” for MAiD/AS/VE. This, when Alberta has a proven self-referral route for patients involving the patient making just one phone-call.

Humanist Dr. Donald Boudreau, McGill University, said “My personal belief is that healing and euthanizing are simply not miscible.” It is only a matter of time before job postings in Geriatrics / Palliative Care / Family Medicine (etc.) specify the need for the applicant to be a MAiD provider. Medical students are already being taught how to kill patients before they are fully taught how to heal them. Indeed, there are calls to screen Med School applicants likely to hold Hippocratic views. That could exclude many good doctors including some Humanists, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians, amongst others.

An Bille um Bás Dínitiúil, 2020 / The Dying with Dignity Bill, 2020

“Dignity” is an emotive argument used to support Euthanasia though it mostly refers to a lack of self-determination and a personal loss of control. It seems evident that being killed due to a perceived lack of self-worth “…violates his or her dignity as a human being.” [Hale]

Whatever their physical/mental status or position in life, we must see the dignity in every person.

Dr. Kevin Hay

Kevin is a UCD grad & now a rural Family Physician in Alberta, Canada. He has been writing on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada for the past 3 years. This article takes information from several sources including his previous articles in The Province (Vancouver) and The Hamilton Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @kevinhay77.

Abandoned Embryos and the Ethics of IVF

Most Catholics know that abortion kills a unique human being—even at that “clump of cells” stage of very early pregnancy. So far, this knowledge does not extend to the cryo-preserved embryo arising from In-Vitro Fertilization. 

The vast majority of biologists agree that human life starts at conception. For example Steve Jacobs found: “…that 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization, with 240 (4%) rejecting that view.” Then, in a 2017 article “Science, Embryonic Autonomy, and the Question of When Life Begins” Ana Maria Dumitru noted that “Shahbaz and colleagues demonstrate in their study that a fertilized egg—also known as a zygote, the “product of conception,” the early embryo, or one of many other descriptive terms—is an autonomous living being. This one little cell, with its complete genetic content, can and does begin to divide and to grow, even in an experimental dish in an incubator in the closet space of some unmarked lab.” (My italics.)

To the science we must add the Church’s teachings. St. John Paul II taught us, "The human being is to be respected and treated as a person—from the moment of conception!”

After putting the science and the morality together it is distressing when people—especially some theologically-trained people—do not perceive the humanity of the abandoned embryo. Some even conclude that it is “morally licit” to remove “…these embryos from cryopreservation, thawing them, and allowing nature to take its course uninhibited.” Be clear: this is a recommendation for the intentional destruction of these unwanted embryos/new human beings. 

In-Vitro Fertilization

Just over 40 years ago, Louise Joy Brown was the first full-term baby to be born after conception through In-Vitro Fertilization [IVF]. During IVF an excess of embryos are often produced so the “spares” can be frozen for future use. If these stored embryos are not used the parent/s get to choose one of two main options—destroy the embryos or put them up for adoption. (Long-term storage is expensive so will cease once the embryo is abandoned and in most ‘civilized’ countries it is illegal to ‘farm’ babies for sale.) 

The Embryo and the Catholic Church

The Church has 150 years of consistent theology on the humanity of the embryo!

Pius IX: In 1869 Pius IX gave us some of the first guidance when he established that a human should be protected, from the moment of conception onward. 

In the aftermath of World War II, the whole world recognized the value of human life and in 1948 the United Nations produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since then there have been profound medical advances and seven Popes have responded to these complex issues. (Remembering that IVF became reality just over 40 years ago and that embryo adoption is an even more recent development.) 

Pius XII repeatedly affirmed the Catholic support of the sanctity of life. He rejected “therapeutic” exceptions to abortion. 

John XXIII said the human embryo has the same dignity as other human beings and, therefore, possesses the same rights which are “universal, inviolable and inalienable.”

Paul VI promulgated Humanae Vitae 10 years before IVF technology: “…above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children.” 

(Louse Joy was born 1 month before Paul VI died in 1978—the Church then suffered the turmoil of a 33-day papacy due to the premature death of John Paul I.)

John Paul I was Pope for 33 days. Before being elected he wrote a series of letters which were published in the book Latissimi and took a critical perspective of abortion, arguing that it violated God's law. 

St. John Paul II promulgated Evangelium Vitae: "Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying.”  

Benedict XVI taught that embryos developed for in vitro fertilization deserve the same right to life as fetuses, children and adults “and that that right extends to embryos even before they are transferred into a woman's womb.” 

Pope Francis, in his encyclical Laudato Si’ said: “We forget that the inalienable worth of a human being transcends his or her degree of development.” 

Theologically and biologically it is clear that every human embryo is indeed a human being.   

Double Effect and the Embryo 

Double Effect can be used by anyone needing to assess the morality of an action which has both morally positive and negative outcomes. “The Principle of Double Effect is used to determine when an action which has two effects, one good and one evil, may still be chosen without sin.” There are four criteria and all four must be fulfilled for a Double Effect to apply. 

• The action must be morally good, or indifferent, as to object, motive and circumstances.

• The evil effect(s) must not be directly willed, only tolerated.

• The good effect must be caused at least as directly as the bad.

• The good effect(s) must be proportionate to compensate for the bad effect(s).

So, applying the criteria for Double Effect to the destruction of an embryo we find: The act of intentionally destroying an embryo is not “morally good” because it causes the death of a unique human being: The “evil effect” is “directly willed” and no good effect is directly caused (there is the indirect avoidance of an artificially induced pregnancy); and finally, no good effect is directly caused so there is no proportionate compensation. 

QED: the intentional destruction of an abandoned frozen embryo is not morally licit. 

Christian Social Justice

Once we accept the humanity of the stored embryo, the first imperative is to save him or her from destruction. Then comes the tough question: What next? If embryo adoption is deemed to be morally illicit by the Church, Catholics would be in an awful moral Catch-22. “Do not kill this human being but also do not let them live their life…”

As Christians we oppose the taking of just one innocent human life. In North America alone there are hundreds of thousands of stored embryos, so there is a potential genocide if these vulnerable human beings are let die world-wide.

Is Embryo Adoption morally licit? 

Possibly! 

Embryo adoption has many moral complexities so the Church cannot really provide one single guidance on the matter. The application of Double Effect below refers only to adoption made with the intention of saving a human life. (It does not address the morality of when there is any intention or action which caused the person to exist in the first place.) 

So, applying the criteria for Double Effect to embryo adoption we find: An embryo adoption saves a life, therefore is morally good: The “evil effects” of an artificially induced pregnancy can be “tolerated” because saving life takes absolute priority: The good effect of saving a life is caused “as directly as the bad” and the good effect of saving a life is “proportionate to compensate” for the bad. 

So, it appears that the adoption of these young human beings may indeed be morally licit.  

Embryo adoption is technically difficult but it appears to be the only Christian / Pro-Life / Whole-Life / Consistent-Life Ethic option available which allows these vulnerable human beings to live their lives. There are now embryo adoption agencies around the world such as the Institut Marquès in Ireland and Snowflakes in the US.

Adoption and the Holy Family

Christians can use the example of the Holy Family for guidance! Mary answered Gabriel, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done…" and after the Virgin Birth, St. Joseph raised Jesus as his own. 

Clearly, adoption is at the very heart of Christianity.

Editor’s note: This piece is particularly timely at a time when the Irish government are hoping to unveil a lucrative IVF service in the coming year. Simon Harris launched an unprovoked attack on Tullamore Parish last year over this issue, claiming that he could ‘not get his head around the issue’, forcing the parish to apologise.

About the author

Dr. Kevin Hay is a Hippocratic Catholic family physician working in rural Alberta, Canada. He is an amateur columnist and has been writing on Life issues since Canada legalized Voluntary Euthanasia.

Keep in touch with him on Twitter