Sister Margaret McBride
In November, a women 11 weeks pregnant came into a Phoenix hospital with a life threatening condition that needed immediate action to save her life. She was given the choice to abort her baby or keep it and informed about how keeping the pregnancy would endanger her life. She made her choice to live and the Nun on staff thought that saving the life of the mother followed Directive 47 in the U.S. Catholic Church’s ethical guidelines for health care providers — that allows, in some circumstance, procedures that could kill the fetus to save the mother. Upon hearing that Sister Margaret McBride allowed the abortion to save the mother’s life, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted immediate excommunicated the nun.
It is certainly a compelling reason to abort an 11 week old fetus to save the life of the mother, especially if the fetus would not have survived had the mother died. I think the Sister McBride made the correct and humane decision. The most compelling argument in the NPR article was this part:
“In the case of priests who are credibly accused and known to be guilty of sexually abusing children, they are in a sense let off the hook,” Doyle says.
Doyle says no pedophile priests have been excommunicated. When priests have been caught, he says, their bishops have protected them, and it has taken years or decades to defrock them, if ever.
“Yet in this instance we have a sister who was trying to save the life of a woman, and what happens to her? The bishop swoops down [and] declares her excommunicated before he even looks at all the facts of the case,” Doyle says.
The church’s suggestion would be to let both the mother and the fetus die, rather than abort to save the life of the mother. It is a double standard for the church to excommunicate a nun for saving the life of this women and then take no action to excommunicate priests who rape children repeatedly, but rather move them from one parish to another.
man who rapes over 200 deaf boys simply confesses his “sins” to an mythical god, this is enough to let him slip by without consequence. The Catholic Confessional stands as the proverbial slate washer that apparently dismisses ordained priests from facing the consequences of ruining so many young lives.
a book geared towards the religious infiltration into American politics. I found a bit of that mixed into Sam’s book, but even better I found his straightforward approach to tackling American fundamentalists brilliantly refreshing. Written in the first person, 
commandments within the Old Testament and how the first 4 commandments have nothing to do with how to behave but rather demand that its followers grovel before their god. Here is an excerpt from his 
food they have decided to deprive themselves of for 40 days. I vaguely recall a passage in the gospels where Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for publicly displaying their fasting and how god will not “count” it on the list he is supposedly making and checking (twice). You poor martyrs! How terrible that you have to do without soda, candy, chocolate, video games, TV, etc for a WHOLE FORTY DAYS. Have you given any thought as to all those who live in abject poverty and NEVER have ANY of that stuff? How arrogant of you to think that your god will reward you for giving up such luxuries when so many starve to death every day because they have nothing to eat? Four years ago I gave up eating all processed sugars, sodas, fast food and excess. I have never owned a video game and have not owned a TV for 3 years. I do this because it benefits my health and encourages exploration of the world. I fail to see how you giving up candy for Lent and complaining about it does anything to benefit you or those who go without every day of their lives. For Lent, try giving up God and see how clear things become.
can’t “eat meat”. The last time I checked, fish was meat. This whole fish on Fridays tradition has an interesting metamorphoses through history. Fasting rules for Catholics in particular used to be very strict. It progressed from no meat allowed on EVERY Friday of the year to only Wednesday and Fridays during Lent and then lastly to “no meat” on only Fridays during Lent. Then, as people tend to do, the faithful found a loophole in their rules because they did not “count” fish as meat by saying that it came from water animals, not land animals. After decades of their flock bending the rules so they could have fish on Fridays, the Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI decided to allow Fish on Fridays in 1966. Now, I don’t mind accommodating my vegan friends, people with allergies or intolerance to certain foods. What does bother me is the “poor me” message that “fasting” Christians bring to my dinner table and to the world. McDonald’s even caters to their “fast” season, commercializing and capitalizing on the pointless tradition of one religion. I fail to see how eating expensive fish, now in short supply is a sacrifice.
to connect how eating 2 to 3 times the amount of calories needed to live each day equates to starving children dying in third world countries. Even here on American soil, families are finding it difficult to find enough food to survive and the pious obese flock to church every Sunday to be reassured by their pastor that they are checking off all the necessary dates to be admitted into heaven. This type of hypocrisy abounds during Lent when the biblical reading encourage homilies about abstinence, moderation, charity and self denial. Obesity is perhaps the most un-Christian behavior of all, exercising gluttony, sloth, greed, addiction, destruction of your “god-given” body and a complete lack of compassion for those who have no food to eat. I fail to see how being 200 pounds overweight exemplifies Christian behavior.
and indeed, John did say something very similar when he put these word’s into Jesus’ mouth: “Unless you eat of the flesh of the son of Man and drink his blood, you have not life in yourselves. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will live in me and I in him” The first quote is from the Mysteries of 
Faith[/amazon] and[amazon ASIN="978-0307278777"]Letters to a Christian Nation[/amazon], explains how Human morality is best explained by science and not by religions. 
Academy of Sciences discusses how people infer their own opinions and judgments onto their “god”, using their own moral instincts to conclude that the imaginary being they worship must think similarly. From S
supporter of ACORN.
not continue offering social service programs in DC if the state passes a same-sex marriage law. Here we go with the Catholic Church, always obsessed with SEX. They sound more obessed with SEX these days than a 12 year old boy! Abstiance only education, celebacy and the
manner that draws ties to a large number of elected government officials including President Ford, George W. Bush and Ronald Regan.
Obviously she and her family decided to abort the babies considering her age and the danger of childbirth at such a young age, (and the circumstance of rape). Because of this decision, the Catholic church responded by excommunicating the child, her mother and the doctors who conducted the procedure.
He told the youngster that he was giving him an anatomy lesson and not to tell anyone because no one would belive the boy.
Follow: