Today is Ascension Thursday, forty days after Easter when we celebrate Our Lord's Ascension. Today is a Solemnity and a Holy Day of Obligation in some parts of the world. See my post from last year for more information on the Ascension.
Canadian pro-life doctors are asking for support in defending their right to refuse to perform or refer for abortions, after an action last week by US-based abortion activists seeking to force all Canadian doctors to participate in abortion.
The National Abortion Federation, which represents US abortionists as well as Canadian physicians, sent a letter to the Canadian Medical Association last week demanding that the CMA’s conscientious objector policy be altered to prevent physicians from refusing to carry out abortions or refer patients to abortion providers. The CMA’s current policy protects the religious and moral convictions of doctors by allowing them to opt out of providing any abortion-related service.
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“If you, as a member of the Canadian pro-life public, are concerned about the pressure that is currently being put on pro-life doctors to participate directly or indirectly in an abortion, please consider writing to Dr. Blackmer and to the president of CMA, Dr. Colin McMillan, the president-elect, Dr. Brian Day, and the editor-in-chief of the CMAJ, Dr. Paul Hebert, THANKING them for upholding and clarifying the CMA's abortion policy, while politely asking that the protections for doctors with respect to freedom of conscience be strengthened.”
...what did the acceptance of the Christian faith mean for the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean? For them, it meant knowing and welcoming Christ, the unknown God whom their ancestors were seeking, without realizing it, in their rich religious traditions. Christ is the Saviour for whom they were silently longing. It also meant that they received, in the waters of Baptism, the divine life that made them children of God by adoption; moreover, they received the Holy Spirit who came to make their cultures fruitful, purifying them and developing the numerous seeds that the incarnate Word had planted in them, thereby guiding them along the paths of the Gospel. In effect, the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbian cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture. Authentic cultures are not closed in upon themselves, nor are they set in stone at a particular point in history, but they are open, or better still, they are seeking an encounter with other cultures, hoping to reach universality through encounter and dialogue with other ways of life and with elements that can lead to a new synthesis, in which the diversity of expressions is always respected as well as the diversity of their particular cultural embodiment.He has been sharply criticized for his statements from the heresy-plagued Indigenous Missionary Council. Father Paulo Suess told the Reuters news service that the Pope’s statement “was wrong and indefensible.” See Rorate Caeli for additional details.
As the blogger at Hallowedground stated with the above image, "Somebody should have told this Priest."
The Cause of the Beatification of Pope Pius XII has advanced. Pius XII led the Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958 and immediately beforehand he was the Secretary of State for the Vatican. Pius XII saved thousands of lives during the Holocaust and was a leader for the Catholic Church. I am extremely glad to see his Cause for Beatification advancing.
Members of the Congregation for Saints' Causes met May 8 to consider the cause of Pope Pius XII and apparently voted to recommend that Pope Benedict XVI formally declare him venerable. Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, vice director of the Vatican press office, confirmed the congregation had met, but since the result of the vote still had to be presented to the pope he would not say May 9 what the result was. However, Jesuit Father Peter Gumpel, who has spent years officially shepherding the cause through its various stages, told Catholic News Service May 11 that the vote was "unanimous and totally positive."
Source: Catholic News Service
This year the Minor Rogation, the days leading up to Ascension Thursday, are May 14-16 inclusive. Today is the first day of the Minor Rogation, a day which should be a day of fasting.
