Loureiro dos Santos. "Merkel está a conseguir aquilo que Hitler não conseguiu"

In i

(Entrevista ao General Loureiro dos Santos)

...

Em 2009 disse ao i que "na história não se conhece uma alteração das forças globais num tão curto período".

Exactamente. E aquilo a que assistimos agora é a adaptação à realidade. O poder dos países emergentes e reemergentes está a mudar e na Europa há um caso.

A Alemanha?

Exacto. O poder está a ser transferido dos países ditos desenvolvidos para o Sul e para o Leste e na Europa os países estão a perder poder para a Alemanha. Isso acontece pelas dívidas desses países que não têm riqueza - e poder é riqueza. É isso que acontece diariamente com as bolsas. Nestes últimos dias, por causa da queda das bolsas, o Ocidente ficou mais pobre 900 mil milhões de euros. Portugal, nestes últimos dias, perdeu 10 mil milhões de euros. Isto é perda de poder! E no meio disto dá--me a ideia de que os países que perdem mais poder e riqueza e que têm de mudar completamente os seus comportamentos são os europeus, excepto a Alemanha.

Numa crónica recente falou na fatalidade de os países do Sul ficarem completamente dependentes dela...

Nesse artigo também levanto uma dúvida: dizem muito mal da Merkel mas eu interrogo-me sobre se há razões para isso. A táctica de não decidir logo é fenomenal! Pode não significar fraqueza, pode ser intencional, porque ela sabe que não decidindo logo vai criando desespero, os países aflitos vêem as dívidas crescer e a certa altura ficam disponíveis para aceitar tudo o que a Merkel quiser impor e é isso que se está a passar. Com o tempo, a própria legislação da UE altera-se para dar poder à Alemanha, que está em condições de conseguir algo que nunca conseguiu...

Nem com o Kaiser nem com Hitler?

Exactamente, escrevi isso. O grande problema da Alemanha, como da Rússia, é não terem fronteiras defensáveis. A Rússia compensa isso por ter muito espaço, que desgasta o adversário. Foi o que aconteceu quando Napoleão invadiu a Rússia e quando Hitler invadiu a Rússia: foram por aí fora, chegaram lá exaustos, perderam e vieram-se embora. A Alemanha para conseguir fronteiras defensáveis tem de ir para as praias. Tentou fazer isso pela guerra, com o Kaiser e com Hitler, e agora está a fazê-lo pela via económica, pagando as fronteiras. E isto é uma alteração brutal no campo estratégico.

A Alemanha vai dominar-nos?

Ouça, a dada altura pensámos que a UE era o reino da solidariedade, mas eu já digo há muitos anos: em relações internacionais não há solidariedade, só interesses. Quando um país entra numa organização de vários estados é porque está convencido de que é melhor estar dentro. E aí cada um procura sempre defender os seus interesses.

Acha que o sonho europeu falhou?

Houve uma série de pessoas com esse sonho, que viam uma Europa tipo Estados Unidos. Mas desde o início foi claro que nem a Alemanha, nem a França nem o Reino Unido estavam interessados nisso, porque não queriam que houvesse uma câmara alta em que o Luxemburgo pudesse pesar tanto como a Alemanha. Como é que a Alemanha podia admitir isso? Na UE nunca houve solidariedade. Eu escrevo isso desde o ano 2000. Que não pensemos que outros vão vir em nosso socorro. Como esta subida do preço dos alimentos: alguém pensa que, se nós estivermos aflitos sem dinheiro para comer, a Alemanha ou a França nos vêm dar alimentos e ficam eles com fome? Que ninguém pense nisso! Em Portugal houve líderes que se convenceram de que agora éramos todos iguais, podíamos ser todos ricos e andámos a gastar o que não tínhamos! Isto explica a nossa actual situação e não fomos só nós que o fizemos, foi a maior parte dos países. Não há solidariedade internacional e a prova é o que está a acontecer na UE.

Já falámos no desespero generalizado e na rapidez dos acontecimentos. Que previsões faz a médio prazo?

Em 2009 eu dizia que se previam cinco ilhas de poder mundial, estados com capacidade de intervenção global: EUA, Rússia, China, Índia e Brasil. E havia duas áreas que podiam ser ilhas de poder mundial, mas que não eram nem eu esperava que viessem a ser. Uma, a Europa - se se unisse sob um poder comum; a outra, o Médio Oriente. Ambas têm muita população e são muito ricas. Só que, não tendo poder político único, as políticas internas chocam e inviabilizam a projecção exterior.

Esta Primavera Árabe mostra isso...

Sim. E na Europa, qual era a possibilidade? Era que a Alemanha dominasse! [risos] Eu escrevi isso! Se a Alemanha arranjasse maneira de se impor à Europa, transformava-se na sexta ilha do poder mundial. E em 2009 eu estava convencido de que isso ia acontecer, mas nunca tão depressa. As coisas estão a cavalgar. Na altura dizia que os EUA seriam a potência directora, mas estou a ver agora que dentro de uns anos vão deixar de marcar a agenda internacional. Será a China, a Índia ou até a Alemanha, se conseguir submeter a Europa. Basta ver pelos ratings. Agora só há meia dúzia de países com AAA e dos grandes julgo que é só a Alemanha.

Falando em rating, o que pensa dessas agências? Ultimamente tem-se questionado muito a sua existência e poder.

O poder é-lhes dado pela forma como os estados reagem aos seus anúncios. Não são elas que detêm poder, quem lhes dá o poder são os estados. Quando os EUA ficam completamente à nora com a baixa do rating estão a dar-lhes muito poder. O capitalismo já não é aquele que os teóricos do século xx referiam. Agora quem controla são organizações acéfalas, que não se sabe bem o que são, nem quem manda lá... Mas são eles que manobram a economia mundial. E mais, hoje o dinheiro é virtual, são bits, aquelas coisas do computador, que não é nada [risos]. Se não houver mudanças nos estados democráticos, se não arranjarem forma de sair desta tendência quase inevitável, vamos caminhar para capitalismos do género russo ou chinês, autoritários, sem liberdades, sem democracia, e isso é um perigo. Os países democráticos têm de evitar que o actual capitalismo sem rosto se transforme em sistemas ditatoriais.

Continuar a ler

«La comunión en la mano no tiene nada que ver con la Iglesia primitiva, es de origen calvinista»

Athanasius Schneider, experto en Patrística y obispo auxiliar en Kazajistán, explicó en una emisora de Radio María cómo se comulgaba entonces.

In Religión en Libertad

Athanasius Schneider tiene 50 años, es ucraniano y desde 2006 ha ejercido como obispo auxiliar en dos diócesis de Kazajistán, una ex república soviética con un 26% de población cristiana, mayoritariamente ortodoxa pero con una pujante comunidad católica.

Recientemente, monseñor Schneider, que es experto en Patrística e Iglesia primitiva, explicó en la emisora de Radio María en el sur del Tirol las diferencias entre la forma de comulgar en la Iglesia primitiva y la actual práctica de la comunión en la mano.

Según afirmó, esta costumbre es "completamente nueva" tras el Concilio Vaticano II y no hunde sus raíces en los tiempos de los primeros cristianos, como se ha sostenido con frecuencia.

En la Iglesia primitiva había que purificar las manos antes y después del rito, y la mano estaba cubierta con un corporal, de donde se tomaba la forma directamente con la lengua: "Era más una comunión en la boca que en la mano", afirmó Schneider. De hecho, tras sumir la Sagrada Hostia el fiel debía recoger de la mano con la lengua cualquier mínima partícula consagrada. Un diácono supervisaba esta operación.

Jamás se tocaba con los dedos: "El gesto de la comunión en la mano tal como lo conocemos hoy era completamente desconocido" entre los primeros cristianos.

Origen calvinista
Aun así, se abandonó aquel rito por la administración directa del sacerdote en la boca, un cambio que tuvo lugar "instintiva y pacíficamente" en toda la Iglesia. A partir del siglo V, en Oriente, y en Occidente un poco después. El Papa San Gregorio Magno en el siglo VII ya lo hacía así, y los sínodos franceses y españoles de los siglos VIII y IX sancionaban a quien tocase la Sagrada Forma.

Según monseñor Schneider, la práctica que hoy conocemos de la comunión en la mano nació en el siglo XVII entre los calvinistas, que no creían en la presencia real de Jesucristo en la eucaristía. "Ni Lutero", que sí creía en ella aunque no en la transustanciación, "lo habría hecho", dijo el obispo kazajo: "De hecho, hasta hace relativamente poco los luteranos comulgaban de rodillas y en la boca, y todavía hoy algunos lo hacen así en los países escandinavos".

Una joven actriz de Harry Potter sobrevivió milagrosamente a un coma al ser bautizada

In Religión en Libertad

La historia de Lucy Hussey-Bergonzi se ha convertido en uno de los temas estrella de la prensa británica en estos días. Aunque los hechos tuvieron lugar en 2009, su familia los ha dado a conocer ahora, en lo que podría ser un milagro sucedido en la persona de una niña que entonces tenía 13 años.

Lucy había superado el casting de Harry Potter y el misterio del príncipe y a principios de ese año había grabado una escena de la película como extra. Pocas horas después sufría un colapso general que obligó a su internamiento en el Great Ormond Street Hospital de Londres.

Un pronóstico fatal
Los médicos detectaron una hemorragia cerebral severa, que dejó a la niña en coma. El origen era una malformación arteriovenosa congénita, un problema que no se detecta hasta que tiene lugar una crisis como la que padeció Lucy.

Si los daños no son graves, en algunos casos la lesión puede mantenerse controlada con fármacos y el paciente hace una vida normal, aunque siempre con el riesgo vital de una posible rotura de vasos. Pero, por desgracia, no era el caso de esta joven actriz londinense.

Un equipo de cirujanos la sometió en coma a dos operaciones, pero la conclusión fue unánime, y transmitieron a los padres su pronóstico: Lucy no sobreviviría.

Denise, su madre, le dijo entonces a Robert, su padre, que quería bautizarla católica. "En aquel momento", explica, "estaba convencida de que iba a morir, y quería darle al menos lo mejor para la otra vida". Sólo habían pasado cinco días desde la desgracia inicial.

El agua obró el milagro
El día fijado para la ceremonia, tras un rato de oración ante su cama, donde Lucy yacía intubada y rodeada de máquinas, el sacerdote dejó correr unas gotas de agua sobre su cabeza para bautizarla.

"En ese momento, Lucy levantó un brazo", cuenta Denise: "Al principio pensé que estaba teniendo un ataque, pero... veinticuatro horas después le habían quitado todos los tubos y la habían desconectado de todas las máquinas".

Las enfermeras mismas lo consideraron un milagro: "Y cuando le pregunté a los médicos cómo Lucy había vuelto con nosotros, me dijeron que no podían explicarlo. Todavía hoy no saben cómo o por qué volvió en sí".

Afrontando el futuro
Actualmente Lucy, que tiene 16 años, mantiene una vida de estudiante normal, aunque tiene un logopeda para recuperar completamente el habla y hace rehabilitación para mejorar el movimiento de sus piernas. Eso, y algunos dolores de cabeza, son las secuelas de su gravísima situación.

Pero está viva, y nadie sabe cómo pudo superar la devastación sufrida por su cerebro. "Debió ser duro volver a aprender a hablar y andar, pero apenas lo recuerdo. Sólo recuerdo la amabilidad y el cariño de mis amigos y familiares", evoca Lucy, que ve las cosas con optimismo y determinación: "Los médicos decían que fue un milagro. Yo lo creo también. No puedo hallar otra explicación".

Interview with Bishop Jean Laffitte on Theology of Human Love

CNA: Blessed Pope John Paul left a significant doctrinal corpus known as the “Theology of the Body”. This doctrinal corpus has had a significant impact in the US. From your perspective, how is this development perceived?

Bishop Laffitte: The doctrinal corpus you are talking about consists of the 133 catecheses that were pronounced by Pope John Paul II from 1979 to 1984.

These catecheses are very well structured because they start with a meditation from the Pope, in a philosophical manner, on the nature of man and woman in their original state.

He talks about original solitude, showing how woman and man are made one for the other as reflected in the action of creation by God in the second chapter of Genesis.

The entire catechesis must be seen from the intention of the Creator, at the beginning. Pope John Paul II first refers to the dialogue that Christ has with the Pharisees when they asked Jesus, “Don't you know that Moses gave us a law allowing us to divorce our wives?”

To which Jesus said, “Yes he did, but it was because of your hardened hearts. At the beginning, it was not so. God created man and woman, and man will leave his father and his mother and will be united with his wife and both will make one flesh.”

It doesn't say “one person” but one flesh. It means that both remain two different persons as moral subjects free to choose to act accordingly to their own nature – man as a man and woman as a woman.

So, the interesting thing is that for the first time in the history of the Church the Pope, the successor of Peter, pronounced this publicly every Wednesday for five years … which means that there is an intention to teach something on the matter.

Significantly, the corpus of the Catecheses belongs to the Magisterium of the Church, even though it's not an encyclical or a dogma. However, it was the intention of John Paul II to teach on this matter as Pope.

It was the first time a reflection of the Church had been made on human love and on the manner one human person relates to another person in conjugal love, and a contemplation of the mystery.

We have to keep in mind that the Pope is talking about mystery – the mystery of creation, the mystery of the beauty of man and woman, and mystery of the relationship between God and the two human beings, both created in His image and likeness.

And the mystery of what they are naturally.

They are created in their humanity, concretely in their bodies, and their bodies are different. He made man and woman capable of a particular union, which is so particular that at the same time it can express the deep feeling and aspiration to be united to the other person … To express human love in this highest and deepest meaning, and at the same time in such a way that it can have as its result the coming into existence eventually of a new human being, if nature so allows.

That's extraordinary – it means that it's the only possibility in nature for a new human life to come into existence – through the loving union between a man and a woman.

So if we contemplate this point, we understand why for the Church the two mysteries – of union and procreation, love and giving life – are intrinsically connected and thus cannot be separated.

The key to the correct interpretation of this catechesis on human love is to contemplate its mystery. We are talking about God's intention – the union of two persons both created in His Image.

This teaching is not only a general or personal reflection of the Pope, who happened to have been a philosopher, and a very good and deep one.

One of the Pope's seminal works Love and Responsibility was written in 1960, eighteen years before he became Pope. Consequently, the Catecheses of which we are speaking are in fact the magisterial fruit of a work that already had reached its maturity in 1960.

So, it's a very, very important doctrinal corpus.

Obviously such contemplation is focused not only on the creational aspect -- and on the metaphysical, ontological and anthropological aspects – but the mystery also includes what was God’s providential intention for the loving union to become.

It should become a sacrament … Such a loving union should symbolize and realize in itself an action of God and a union of God Himself, that being between Christ and the Church.

So, there's a sacramental part to the Catecheses but also an ethical part, a moral part, because when you are created in such a manner, then what you are doing in your sexual union with your husband, with your wife, is so meaningful, so mysterious, so great.

Then, of course, the truth of the matter is that you cannot use this faculty in whatever way you please. The sexual faculty is something that belongs to nature but also belongs to a human being who is called to eternity, to an eternity of love with God.

CNA: What do you identify as the blessings of Blessed Pope John Paul's doctrine on love, the human body and human sexuality?

Bishop Laffitte: The first blessing is that this doctrine has given people a tool through which to understand their own nature, their own aspiration to love and to be loved.

Pope John Paul II always referred to such fundamental experiences, which are the deepest in the heart of man.

Among these fundamental experiences are the desire to contribute to society, to create something in life, to build a family – all of these things are fundamental experiences we all have in our hearts. But perhaps the essential one is the desire to love and to be loved.

And so, this development by John Paul II allows everyone to understand himself, who he is or who she is.

Marriage is the perfect mediation for such experience because through marriage you discover not only the fulfillment of human and natural aspiration but also the spiritual. Marriage conveys the grace it gives you as a sacrament, the grace of God and the dynamism of this love that is not only human but also is divine.

The blessing is to have answered the question that everybody has had since childhood or adolescence.

Personally, I can say I've taught for nearly 20 years on this matter across the continents, in fact in more than 20 countries and in various languages.

Everywhere I go, people have the same questions.

CNA: Do you identify any problems in the manner that Blessed Pope John Paul's teachings on this issue have been popularized, particularly in the English-speaking world?

Bishop Laffitte: The question you ask on this topic refers to the possibility that Pope John Paul II's Catecheses and their wonderful deepening of human love could be misunderstood or wrongly interpreted by some individuals unilaterally stressing “my way” or another way.

One of these problems to which you refer – the debates about which you know in English-speaking countries – concerns the so-called “Theology of the Body.”

I know that “Theology of the Body” is the title or English translation of what originally has been called the Catecheses on Human Love.

“Theology of the Body” is not a wrong expression on the condition of respecting the intention of John Paul II, that he was talking about human love and not only a partial focus on the body and on sexuality, being a bodily expression of love.

The problem, then, is how best to articulate the truth of Blessed John Paul II’s teaching on human love.

Certainly the body has a theological dimension, and this dimension involves God's design of human love and what within the nature of man and woman belongs to the fulfillment of the design.

If God has created man and woman to be united and to give human life, the Creator wanted the human being to be His own mediator in the action of creation – and that's indeed extraordinary.

He had directly created Adam and Eve. He could have done so for everybody else, but God's design was different. From that moment, in His providential intention, the man and woman whom God had created would be the future mediators through whom He would continue to give life to the human race.

This is the mystery of sexuality – the expression of a divine and human love that is both integrated and interpenetrated.

Considering the mystery of human sexuality, it is impossible to isolate such sexuality or the body from the mystery of nature, to isolate the creature from the Creator.

The problem is that if you focus only on sexuality, you cannot develop beyond that level, that such beauty is a gift, something given to mankind by the Creator but within a much broader context.

Attraction to the beauty of human sexuality and the human body is normal because it is true and real.

What can become a problem, however, would be to regard human sexuality in a kind of mystical way. Pope John Paul II embraced no form of mystic sexuality. What the Blessed Pontiff did in fact say is that sexuality has a mystical perspective and dimension.

It means that the mystery is not only the unity of the body, but rather it is the union of these bodies that are animated by God and express a spiritual love, from themselves individually but also from the two in union together with God.

When Pope John Paul II talks about the body, it is crucial to understand that we are talking about an animated body, which is the body of a person.

The union of two persons is thus a personal event, and the sexual act of two spouses is a spiritual event, a mutual gift … and not only a biological event. The desire here is to be united not with just any person, but with this person in particular: This is my wife, this is my husband.

There's personalization in this dynamic, and it's not interchangeable.

If we develop a mysticism of sexuality, in a reduced meaning of the word, then we could make the argument of an interchangeable sexuality.

And why not? If sexuality were wonderful only in this aspect – mere intercourse between a man and a woman – then why should it not be the same for this man and another woman, and another, and another?

No – it's not like that at all. It's a personal event. Such union is between two persons, one made for the other in God's Providence.

Personally, I don't agree with contemplation of the sexual phenomenon without providing the entire context of the mystery of creation, the mystery of God's calling to experience and to live human love.

The English translation of Blessed John Paul II’s doctrinal teaching as “Theology of the Body”, while not incorrect in a strict sense, does not typify the entirety of his Catecheses on human love. The Catecheses were originally what the Blessed Pope himself chose in 1985 to be the first critical publication made by the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome.

The professors of the Institute were charged with introducing each cycle of the Catecheses with the Pope's original intent, and the title was not “Teologia del Corpo Umano.” Rather, the title given was Catechesi sull’Amore Umano.

So, “Theology of the Body” is not wrong. However, if people have no formation on creation, on God's design, on the anthropology of man and woman, or on the differentiation of the sexes, they then have no ability to defend against the gender ideologies rampant in our secular world today.

If you talk only about sexuality, then there eventually will be no problem, for instance, with homosexual intercourse as an expression of affection and love and as a person's desire to offer his own love to the other.

And what could be said to that? Nothing, if we're not capable of relating the mystery of love according to God's design.

We are Christian, and thus it's our obligation not to keep quiet concerning the role of God in creating us and in giving us the possibility to be united with our spouses.

There is a danger of vulgarizing here a crucial truth of our Faith that needs rather to be contemplated. It requires a silence. Sometimes in reading Blessed John Paul II’s Catecheses, you read only half of a page and then have to stop … you cannot continue … because it provokes within you a kind of loving meditation of what God has made. You enter into the mystery.

“Theology of the Body” may be clear for you, but it won't be for people who have never thought practically about creation or of God's love and design.

Here lies a problem and risk in transmitting the Catecheses.

In order to transmit this beauty and this truth, we have to emphasize that the act of creation was a loving act of God.

God is not a cold, removed architect who sets arbitrary demands on His creation. Rather, He is a loving Father who knows what is within the heart of man and woman -- He created them sexually, physically, personally and morally.

Then, extraordinarily, we can see that the intention of the Creator was to create man and woman in such a way that no one could ever say he or she in himself or herself contains the totality of humanity.

If I am a man, I cannot say that in myself I have the totality and the richness of what it means to be a woman and vice versa.

John Paul II said that man and woman not only reflect the image and likeness of God in their solitude but indeed do even more so in their communion. This truth reflects the mystery of the divine communion of the Holy Trinity.

We cannot understand creation well without relating the communion between man and woman to that of the divine persons of the Holy Trinity.

We have to demonstrate this truth, insisting that the call to love and to be loved leads to authentic happiness – not only because it's an aspiration that comes from the deepest part of our nature – but because it originates from God's design, which is a loving design.

God knows what is good for man, and what is good for woman. The Catecheses need to be understood in this light.

Pope Benedict XVI is in total continuity with Pope John Paul II's teachings. Certainly John Paul II focused his attention on the anthropological and ethical aspects of human love and the existential and philosophical meditation of the mystery. Pope Benedict now emphasizes the holiness of human love, and for him, he contemplates in human love the divine love that exists in God.

In Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, Deus caritas est, he is very audacious when he speaks of a “divine eros”, which is the design that God has for human love … It's amazing! This teaching is a step forward that illustrates the continuity between the two Popes’ teachings.

The beauty of the body reflects the presence of the spirit, which is a mystery. And yet, we still have to contend with the reality of sin.

Man and woman have sinned, and in our bodies we bear the consequences of this wound in our nature.

That's why it's unrealistic – even a kind of angelism – to imagine that we can discuss or express our sexuality in an indifferent manner.

There is a dignity, there is a loving manner to be united …There is a respectful expression of love and God’s design needed in relating this teaching.

CNA: Certainly the intent to make the Pope's teachings widely accessible is good, albeit misdirected at times. How then, would you recommend people go about making the Catecheses known?

Bishop Laffitte: It's fundamentally a good thing to have the desire to transmit the Catecheses on Human Love as far as possible to as many people as possible.

It's an evangelization so needed today as human love has been so disfigured in modern society. May I add that we can never talk of a new evangelization without emphasizing conjugal and family life in the perspective we have just illustrated ?

So, how can we do that?

Personally, I am against any notion that we should reduce all difficult thought, or any difficult articulation of ideas, assuming in advance that people are unintelligent.

Perhaps at times we may encounter people who are not cultivated, who may not enjoy the habit of dealing with philosophical and anthropological topics on a regular basis.

However, a person of good faith always is able to be sensitive to mystery, because a person lives and experiences without necessarily knowing how to describe it.

Even when a person cannot read and write, when he falls in love with someone he enters into an extraordinary mystery -- exactly the same mystery experienced by someone who might be able to describe it with more finesse.

The problem involves not the formulation, but rather the respect for the mystery with which we are dealing.

It is essential to present these teachings with reverence, with meditation, with silence. We’re dealing here with an endeavor in genuine education, not merely a strict transmission of knowledge.

The Catecheses of which we speak are not a “gnosis” only understood by an elite, but rather they serve as an extraordinary deepening of human understanding, in what every man and woman is called to experience.

Every single person within any culture can understand the questions: “What do you want in your life? What are your deepest desires?”

The transmission must be a holistic one – it means being conscious of the nature of the person. You wouldn't speak to a 15 year-old in the way you would a 20 year-old, or a married couple or an elderly couple. But all of them can understand the nature of the mystery.

Tapa-olhos à mão-tente

Pelo que se conhece da comunicação social os políticos que estão actualmente no mando em Portugal têm desenvolvido freneticamente uma política vertiginosa de aumentos de impostos e de controlo delirante da medicação e dos padecentes que a ela têm de recorrer, invadindo abusivamente a sua destes esfera de privacidade.

Enquanto se corta no essencial ou a ele se dificulta o acesso, em virtude dos preços ou/e dos IVAS exorbitantes, esta súcia, desventuradamente amistada com Moloch, com perversidade tirânica obstina-se estroinamente em subsidiar e em prodigamente cooperar, através do ministério da saúde (!), na contracepção (qua contracepção) e nos homicídios em forma de abortamentos químicos, mecânicos e cirúrgicos.

O Episcopado que tem a estrita obrigação de denunciar estas horrendíssimas atrocidades bem como opor-se ao malvado totalitarismo incluso nestas ferocidades crudelíssimas tem-se, em geral, comportado como cão mudo, incapaz de velar pelo rebanho, amigado com as bestas-feras lupisomens, devoradores voracíssimos dos seus dele rebanhos e devastadores talares da fisionomia humana e cristã consubstanciadas e defendidas pelos valores e princípios absolutos, alicerçados na dignidade da pessoa humana, enquanto imagem e semelhança do único Deus na trindade das Pessoas Divinas, e, por isso, não negociáveis.

É, pois, uma emergência urgentíssima implorar, por palavras e acções, a Justiça e a Misericórdia do Criador e Redentor cujo “perdão … principia com o castigo” (Camilo Castelo Branco, Obras completas de Camilo Castelo Branco, vol. VII, A Filha do regicida, cap. XXVII, pg. 924, Lello & Irmão – editores, Porto, 1987, pp. 1342) para que lhes conceda os necessários tapa-olhos à mão-tente.

Nuno Serras Pereira

12. 08. 2011

US Bishop on unrepentant pro-abort politicians: ‘Treat them as a tax collector or Gentile. Expel him.’

by Christine Dhanagom

FARGO, North Dakota, August 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Church should seek the conversion of pro-abortion politicians, but if they remain obstinate they should be expelled from the Church, says Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo.

The Bishop proposed in an interview with Catholic World Report this week that Bishops should take their cue from the Gospel of Matthew in handling pro-abortion politicians.

“Our Lord tells us to speak to the person, and then take two or three others with us if he does not change,” he said. “If he still does not change, the Church can speak to him, which is done through the bishop. [The bishop] exercises the authority of Christ. Christ then says that if that person is still obstinate and will not change, treat them as a tax collector or Gentile. Expel him.’”

The Bishop continued: “Catholics are called to defend human life, particularly that of the unborn. The Church’s teaching is clear. If we don’t challenge public officials who reject this teaching, we leave them in their sins and confuse the faithful.”

Aquila, who has been the spiritual head of the diocese of Fargo in North Dakota for ten years, is well known for his support for the pro-life cause.

His active support for the 40 Days for Life campaign in Fargo included sending a letter to the priests of the diocese asking them to sign up for an hour of prayer outside an abortion clinic. He has also personally led prayer vigils outside Fargo’s only abortuary.

The Bishop told Catholic World Report that his commitment to pro-life advocacy began in the 1970s, when he got a glimpse of the devastating aftermath of an abortion as an orderly in an emergency room in Colorado.

“A woman who had had an incomplete abortion was brought in. Those of us working in the emergency room were pro-life and had had nothing to do with the abortion, but were trying to help the woman afterward,” he said.

“It was there I first saw the remains of an unborn child, about three and a half months along. It really impacted me. It was impressed in my mind and my heart and that this was a human life. It had now been forever destroyed. Ever since then I’ve been outspoken on human-life issues, and tried to help people to understand the dignity of human life.”

Aquila also told the news service that clergy should be outspoken in defending the Church’s teaching in other areas, as well, particularly regarding the sanctity of marriage.

“The Church has been clear that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and we need to continue to speak clearly to society on the truth, dignity, and meaning of marriage,” he said.

Fallece a los 97 años sacerdote jesuita padre del lenguaje informático

ROMA, 11 Ago. 11 / 08:45 pm (ACI/EWTN Noticias)

El 9 de agosto falleció en Italia el sacerdote jesuita y padre del lenguaje informático, P. Roberto Busa, que es además el compilador del Index Thomisticus, la gran obra que reúne todos los trabajos de Santo Tomás de Aquino.

El periodista Stefano Lorenzetto escribe en el diario vaticano L’Osservatore Romano (LOR) que "si existe una santidad tecnológica, creo haber tenido el privilegio de encontrarla: tenía el rostro del Padre Busa".

Este sacerdote, señala, fue un gran lingüista, filósofo e informático. "Si navegas en Internet, se lo debes a él, si pasas de un sitio a otro haciendo clic con los enlaces marcados en azul, se lo debes a él. Si usas el PC para escribir mails y documentos de texto, se los debes a él", afirma.

Lorenzetto recuerda luego que en 1949, habiendo compilado las nueve millones de palabras de las obras de Santo Tomás, el P. Busa fue a buscar al fundador de IBM, Thomas Watson, quien le dijo que las grandes máquinas de ese entonces no podían relacionar estos contenidos.

El sacerdote insistió usando para ello el lema de IBM "lo difícil lo hacemos rápido y lo imposible nos toma un poco más de tiempo", a lo que Watson respondió: "está bien Padre, Lo probaremos. Pero con una condición: Prométame que usted no cambiará IBM, siglas de International Business Machines a International Busa Machines".

De este desafío nació el hipertexto, nombre acuñado por Ted Nelson en 1965, cuyo precursor fue el P. Busa poco más de 15 años antes.

Al Padre Busa, recuerda LOR, le tomó un millón ochocientos mil horas de trabajo compilar los 118 libros de Santo Tomás y otros 61 autores al respecto, viajando además entre Pisa, Boulder (Colorado, Estados Unidos) y Venecia.

Profesor de filosofía de Santo Tomás de Aquino, el sacerdote jesuita que conocía el latín, griego, hebreo, francés, inglés, alemán y español, "no pronunciaba una palabra que fuese superflua o que fuera pronunciada en vano", señala Lorenzetto.

Finalmente el autor de la nota de LOR señala que el P. Busa era consciente que el lenguaje informático tenía su origen en la inteligencia humana, que era un reflejo del poder creador de Dios, "autor y productor del cosmos", sobre quien "los Evangelios nos aseguran que hace dos mil años descendió del cielo".

Roberto Busa nació el 28 de noviembre de 1913 en Vicenza, Italia. Ingresó al seminario en 1928. Entró a la Compañía de Jesús en 1933 y fue ordenado sacerdote el 30 de mayo de 1940.

Estudió filosofía en la Pontificia Universidad Gregoriana en donde hizo la tesis sobre "La terminología tomística de la interioridad" publicada en Milán en 1949.

Su obra más importante es el Index Thomisticus. Sancti Thomae Aquinatis operum omnium indices et concordantiae compuesto por 56 volúmenes de casi mil páginas cada uno. En 1990 su obra se convirtió en un CD-ROM y luego en un DVD.

Beckhams' baby defended as benefit to humanity

by David Kerr

London, England, Aug 10, 2011 / 03:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The recent birth of David and Victoria Beckham’s baby daughter, Harper Seven, is good news for the future of humanity, according to a population expert who teaches at the London School of Economics.

“Congratulations to David and Victoria! The arrival of a fourth Beckham baby is certainly great news for them – but it’s also good news for the economy and the future of the planet,” said Dr. Dermot Grenham in an Aug. 10 interview with CNA.

Dr. Grenham was responding to several leading figures in the population control movement who condemned the Beckhams for having another child.

“No sooner does a celebrity have three or four children than the doomsayers start complaining that they are giving a very bad example to the rest of us who might all start having more children.

“If only this were true,” lamented Dr. Grenham, whose latest book “On Population” will be released in January.

“Birth rates in richer countries are already below replacement level, in some countries well below, which means that sooner or later there will be a dwindling number of workers to support the elderly. What sort of society will that leave to our children?”

His comments contrast sharply with those from the likes of Simon Ross, chief executive of the U.K.-based Optimum Population Trust, who last month criticized the Beckhams as “very bad role models.” Ross added, “there’s no point in people trying to reduce their carbon emissions and then increasing them by 100% by having another child.”

Dr. Grenham, though, says the Beckhams are actually “very good role models,” as many countries around the world – and not just wealthy western states – are now facing a worrying population crisis.

“Many poorer countries are already having to deal with an aging population before they have generated enough wealth to be able to provide the level of social protection such as old age pensions that we are used to.”

The birth of baby Harper Seven Beckham last month gave a sister to David and Victoria’s three sons – 12-year-old Brooklyn Joseph, 8-year-old Romeo James and 6-year-old Cruz David. The family presently lives in California, where David plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer. The Beckhams joint wealth is estimated at over $200 million.

“So good on the Beckhams for having four children and future taxpayers who - if they are half as successful as their parents - will be contributing mightily towards my pension,” quipped Dr. Grenham.

Therapists: APA gay ‘marriage’ declaration based on politics, not science

by Kathleen Gilbert

August 9, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A group of therapists dedicated to providing therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction has criticized the American Psychological Association’s (APA) new declaration in favor of same-sex “marriage” as tainted by primarily political motivations.

The declaration, adopted earlier this month by the APA’s policymaking body in a unanimous vote, professes antipathy toward state-level efforts to maintain legal marriage as between a man and a woman, and criticizes such campaigns as sources of stress for homosexual persons.

“Statewide campaigns to deny same-sex couples legal access to civil marriage are a significant source of stress to the lesbian, gay, and bisexual residents of those states,” states the APA, which bills itself as “a strong advocate for full equal rights for LGBT people.”

Dr. Julie Hamilton, President of The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), said the declaration was another instance of the APA inappropriately playing the standard-bearer for a political cause.

“The APA far too often bases their position statements on political ideology rather than scientific findings,” said Hamilton in a statement provided to LifeSiteNews.com.

“Although the APA is regarded as a professional, scientifically based organization, far too often it does not function as such.”

Hamilton noted that Drs. Rogers Wright and Nicholas Cummings, both former top APA officials, have disclosed that “many of the APA’s decisions are influenced by ideology rather than research” in their book, Destructive Trends in Mental Health.

“As a result, the APA cannot be viewed as a reliable source of scientific information, and the stances they take therefore lack any real value,” she said.

Homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder in 1973 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the universal standard for classification of mental illness, after years of high-pressure lobbying by gay rights activists.

In a scene not unlike recent demonstrations for same-sex “marriage,” Dr. Melvin Sashbin in 1998 recalled how a gay rights demonstration at the American Psychiatric Association’s 1970 meeting was so disruptive that the Association hired a security consultant to try to ensure more peaceful demonstrations in the future.

“It was guerrilla theater,” said Sashbin, who described “screaming” that eventually quieted into discussion.

Dr. Robert Spitzer, who was in charge of the DSM change, reversed his position on therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction nearly 30 years later to support such therapy based on his own research.

Although expressing wariness of treatment for same-sex attraction, the APA currently states that there is “insufficient evidence” to either approve or discredit such therapy.

Contraception and Healthcare Rights

by Christopher O. Tollefsen

In The Pubic Discourse

August 10, 2011

Contraception does not respond to an authentic healthcare need, and the state acts untruthfully and beyond its legitimate authority when it mandates contraception coverage.

In the drama of our recent debt crisis, a key announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services received inadequate attention: from now on, contraceptives (including the morning-after pill) and sterilization are to be considered “preventative” medicine and will be entirely covered, along with other forms of preventative medicine, by insurance policies, without co-pay.

Many religious leaders and academics worried that the new healthcare regulations would inadequately address the conscience concerns of religiously affiliated healthcare institutions. The worries about conscience were well-founded. While the new regulations provide exemptions for religious healthcare institutions, those exemptions are exceedingly narrowly drawn, and only apply to those institutions that primarily employ and serve those who share the religious tenets of the institution. This requirement will, it seems, effectively rule out most religious healthcare facilities, which, after all, serve all comers, and not just co-religionists.

So, how should religiously affiliated institutions respond? They should, no doubt, continue to argue that the regulations violate freedom of conscience and attempt to expand relevant exemptions. But they must not overlook a more fundamental problem. By treating the provision of contraceptives as a necessary part of the political common good, these regulations create a political entitlement to contraceptives, a right that has never been part of our collective self-understanding as a nation.

The ground for claiming a political right to contraceptives and sterilization comes out of a more general idea underlying the recent attempt at reforming healthcare, which is this: it is reasonable to make affordable healthcare, including preventative care, a political entitlement for people who are unable to obtain it themselves. That idea strikes me as fundamentally correct. We can grasp that healthcare, broadly defined as access to medical interventions, drugs, and technologies, is essential to the preservation of life and bodily integrity, and proper organ functioning. Death, not far from those who are seriously diseased or disabled, brings an end to human existence and well-being—the focal points of health. And to be healthy enables one not only to thrive physically, but also to pursue all kinds of other opportunities. So health, and thus healthcare, is centrally important to human life.

If one recognizes the importance of healthcare for the sake of his own health, then he should also see its importance for the lives of all other human beings. Thus, our ties to other human beings, whether by kinship, nationality, or even physical proximity (think of “Good Samaritan” stories), put certain obligations on us to do what we can whenever these beings suffer urgent health-related needs. The first obligation of parents, for instance, is to care for their children’s health; and it is the obligation of neighbors and passersby everywhere to do what they can for those in urgent need.

But often, little can be done. In a world of expensive technologies that require special skill for their use, we can best meet our already existing obligations to other human beings through socially cooperative acts that distribute benefits, burdens, and obligations fairly and effectively. In some cases, the most efficient way to distribute these benefits, burdens, and obligations may be state involvement. If this is true, then in those cases, the state must take action.

Efficiency requires a concern for prevention: if small steps like vaccinations can stop future epidemics, then we should take those small steps. And if only the state’s help allows us to do this effectively, then the state should help. So, based on their efficiency, vaccination programs backed by state requirements could be preferable to programs asking only for voluntary compliance.

Now, wherever we judge that we have obligations to provide care and that the state’s assistance best helps us meet those obligations, then in some way, we have identified a right to healthcare – a human need of such gravity that others are obligated to come to provide aid. We have also begun to translate that right into a political right, an entitlement.

Yet we should be cautious in deciding to make a healthcare need into a healthcare right. To start this process of translation surely requires the following conditions:

• The identified need must be a genuine healthcare need.
• It must be a need of great gravity and urgency.
• It must be a need that requires the state’s participation in serving it.

Though these three requirements may not be the only preconditions for a healthcare need to become a healthcare right, if the state fails to meet any one of them, but asserts a healthcare right and sets up structures to serve that right, then the state either acts contrary to truth or acts outside of its authority, and thus unjustly.

The state would act contrary to truth if it smuggled into the general right to healthcare some non-health related benefits. In the case of contraception and sterilization, one can convincingly argue, first, that neither addresses an illness or a malfunctioning organ, and second, that the ability to become pregnant is in fact a sign of good health. So what disease is truly being prevented with these mandatory “preventative” care procedures?

The state would act outside its authority if the goods it sought were not goods that it is part of the state’s mandate to serve, or if the state’s involvement were not more efficient than the activity of citizens and their more local efforts at cooperation. The state simply has no mandate to be involved directly in the provision of every possible good to its citizens. In some cases, the good is, in some ways at least, in principle beyond the scope of the state: right religious worship, for example. In other cases, the state would be treating its citizens as children, doing for them what they were both obliged and able to do for themselves.

The HHS decision treats as a health care problem the social and moral problem of unwanted and unplanned pregnancy. And this is both a social and moral problem, it should be stressed: out of wedlock pregnancy is a widespread phenomenon, and is often devastating for the children so conceived, born, and raised. It is an injustice to them that their parents should be so reckless in their sexual choices. But injustice is not illness, and treating it as if it were is both untruthful, and dangerous, by addressing a moral problem as if it were subject to a technical fix.

Of course, the state is not simply looking to the serious social suffering that comes about from sexual irresponsibility; it is also looking to the benefits of free sexual activity without the threat of children, benefits widely desired by men and women throughout the West. Widespread availability, and now cost-free provision of contraceptives beings us one large step closer to a widely held goal of complete sexual liberation for men and women, a goal the achievement of which will be seen by many as a tremendous personal and social good.

Does achieving such a goal really fall under the authority and obligation of the state? Is the state, which exists to allow all of its citizens to pursue human well-being by assisting citizens where they are incapable of assisting themselves – by coordinating social action, by defending the nation against internal and external marauders, and by providing welfare benefits to those who would otherwise grapple with serious deficiencies to their well-being – is that state obligated to bring about the sexual revolution by requiring that all citizens, even those who would reject the sexual revolution as directly contrary to their understanding of human good, join together to treat that revolution as a funded political right?

That we even need to ask this question shows just how radical and far-reaching these new requirements are.

Many believe that when the pill was created in the twentieth century, its existence signaled that we were radically rethinking the goals of medicine; we turned away from concern for bodily health and towards something more focused on patient desires. These new requirements from the HHS threaten to usher in a similar change to our self-understanding as a nation.

The Fading “Bright Line” of Consciousness In Life & Death Decisions

by E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil., Senior Fellow and Director, Fellows Program

In Culture of Life Foundation

Most philosophical arguments against the personhood of embryos, fetuses or comatose patients focus on consciousness as the capacity that corresponds to the possession of moral value. Conscious human beings, even minimally conscious, are obviously ‘one of us’ — have interests, feel pain, perceive objects, and can offer at least rudimentary gestures of self-report. Since they are “persons” they should not be subjected to purely instrumental treatment such as lethal experimentation or deadly dosages of drugs. Those who cannot exercise consciousness are either not yet persons (e.g., embryos) or no longer persons (e.g., irreversibly comatose patients).

In end-of-life issues, all the high profile “merciful starvation” debates of the last few decades have concerned patients who have lost the capacity for consciousness (e.g., Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, Terri Schiavo, Aruna Shanbaug, and Tony Bland in the U.K.). Recall the pictures of Terri Schiavo gazing up fixedly from her bed. Defenders of her starvation insisted that her fitful states of wakefulness were reflex behaviors devoid of conscious awareness, as if the question of life and death hinged on whether she was ever conscious. Opponents replied: “starving living human beings is wrong whether or not they are ever conscious.”

How does the secular mind deal with patients who are less than fully conscious? Are they less than fully human? If their capacity for conscious experience is compromised through severe disability, are their lives as valuable as those who are full-bodied and strong? Would it be merciful to starve one whose hope of returning to full consciousness has been lost? Euthanasia advocates, of course, have always argued that there are some lives that are ‘not worth living.’ But in the jurisprudence of medicine, cases dealing with the lawful withholding of life-sustaining care from patients whose preferences are not clearly stated have drawn the line at consciousness. That line is now fading.

A British judge was recently asked to decide whether the family of brain damaged woman—known only as M—should be allowed to withhold food and water and let her die. The 51-year-old woman, severely disabled since 2003, is not comatose, not in a PVS, and is not otherwise dying. She is very clearly conscious, but minimally so —“a minimally conscious state ”. Her nurses say she responds to music and conversation and even attempts to communicate with those around her.

But some of her caregivers believe that her life has lost all meaning: “What can she possibly get out of life?,” M’s sister asks. “She can't move, speak and she's fed through a tube. She can't even enjoy a cup of tea.”

Her sister’s distress is understandable. But her conclusion that M would be better off dead is terribly misguided. That’s because the question, “What can M get out of life?” is misguided. It is true that most of life’s meaning is wrapped up in the conscious pursuit of human goods, in friendship and knowledge, inner peace and harmony with God. But life’s meaning is not exhausted by the purposeful pursuit of conscious goals. Even when consciousness has been lost, one great human good still remains: life. Traditional morality calls it the “intrinsic goodness of human bodily life.” And that goodness stands as a moral barrier between every person and every intention to harm or kill him or her.

The life of a neurologically disabled baby, or child, or adult is still good and deserves nurture and care. Caring for those who are cognitively impaired is good for the disabled, good for their caregivers and good for the community.

M’s life is good and should be protected from starvation.

But so too are M’s conscious experiences, however minimal, of being cared for, listening to music and conversing with others. Is music less enjoyable to her because of her disability? Perhaps. But perhaps she enjoys it more. Can we qualify the value of experience based upon degree neurological ability? A recent study in the British Medical Journal Open concluded that the majority of Locked-In Syndrome patients (with complete paralysis of all voluntary muscles and yet at least minimally consciousness) are happy.

We’ve heard it before: death’s in her ‘best interest;’ life is ‘of no further benefit’ to her. Since the Cruzan case in 1990 (and the Bland Case in 1993), PVS patients have been routinely deprived of food and water with the protection of the courts. There’s no substantive ethical difference between these cases and the case of M.

But there is a symbolic difference. Even according to the liberal mind, deliberately bringing about the death of a conscious human being is killing someone—killing ‘one of us’. If the person doesn’t want to die, it’s called murder. If he does, it’s assisted suicide. Consciousness notwithstanding, the case of M is being framed as a simple case of the removal of life-support. Another watershed about to be breached.

There’s little consolation in saying ‘I told you so.’ Pro-lifers have argued for years that all milestones short of fertilization are arbitrary. There is nothing bright about the line of consciousness: its onset and expression at the margins of life are both elusive; the organ development necessary for its actualization supplies no light-switch moment where after the final pieces of a hard-wired system are in place, consciousness ‘turns on.’ It is the gradual awakening of a multi-layered capacity—involving the concomitant interaction of anatomical, neurochemical, physiological (and environmental) factors—radically present from fertilization unfolding along the seamless line of development that begins when the entity begins and ends for most when bodily life ceases. In other words, there is no clear line of consciousness to draw. Those who set down the line as the fateful marker of personhood, have done so by fiat. And they erase the line, as we are now seeing, by the same arbitrary means.