The Hermeneutic of Continuity

What functions may an instituted acolyte perform in the Liturgy? Can he expose the Blessed Sacrament? Should he wear a cope? In 1973, Pope Paul VI replaced the minor orders which were received by students training for the priesthood with admission to candidacy for Holy Orders, and the ministries of lector and acolyte. These are considered as lay ministries, though few dioceses institute lay people to these ministries except those who are in priestly formation. (One reason may be that Pope Paul reserved these ministries to men.) The acolyte assists the priest and deacon especially in the celebration of Mass. He serves at Mass (a function that is normally carried out by others if there is no acolyte) and is an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion ex officio . If extraordinary ministers are required for the distribution of Holy Communion, the acolyte should be deputed to this function before others. He may also purify the sacred vessels after Holy Communion. If there is no pries...

It has become fashionable for pro-abortion campaigners in Britain to refer to prayer vigils outside abortion clinics as "American-style protests." Why I am Pro-Life , a blog for young pro-lifers in Britain, had a post the other day: Yeehaw watch out for "American tactics and American money" . Now I know that some Americans read this blog: you may be baffled by this apparent racism on the part of the pro-abortionists. As the Yeehaw post points out, it is only a selective anti-Americanism. At the BPAS they are happy to appoint Americans and take American money - as long as it is from the right sort of Americans. With that in mind, I hope you won't mind a report on today's pro-life Vigil at Maidstone with allusions to the "American style" of the goings-on. Bishop John Hine, auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Southwark with responsibility for the Kent area, joined the Helpers of God's Precious Infants today. He celebrated the 12.30pm Ma...

An Oratorian sent me a link to a fascinating piece by Blessed John Henry Newman, one of his Tracts for the Times. The title is On Alterations in the Liturgy . Newman was writing as an Anglican at the time - the Tracts were an important part of the activities of the Oxford Movement: Newmans fmaous Tract 90, arguing for a Catholic interpretation of the 39 articles, caused immense controversy, brought the series to an end, and was a significant milestone in his conversion. In Tract 3, Newman is essentially arguing against change in the Liturgy. I think that many of you would be interested to read the whole tract but here are some quotations. First of all on the "temper" of innovation: "But as regards ourselves, the Clergy, what will be the effect of this temper of innovation in us? We have the power to bring about changes in the Liturgy; shall we not exert it? have we any security, if we once begin, that we shall ever end? Shall not we pass from non-essentials to essenti...

The Vatican widget arrived in this morning's post. I put it in the sidebar but the width is 280px which would extend it halfway across the blog. Reducing it to 150px to fit, the heading picture is chopped. I'll leave it there for a bit in case you want to let me know whether it is useful. Perhaps better to put this on the parish website. Here is the full 280px version: Not here any more ;-) Ah! I see that placing the widget in the post blanks out the widget on the sidebar. I'll leave it here for a day or so anyway. UPDATE : I have removed it now on account of the length of the last couple of posts. The sidebar version works.

On St George's day, the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Mennini addressed the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales at their Plenary meeting in Leeds. He began by speaking of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and asking for generosity in support of it. He spoke of the Bishops' pastoral letter on marriage as "a good start." On the question of marriage, he raised another issue, quoting Pope Benedict: On the practical level, marriage preparation programmes must be carefully reviewed to ensure that there is greater concentration on their catechetical component and their presentation of the social and ecclesial responsibilities entailed by Christian marriage. In this context we cannot overlook the serious pastoral problem presented by the widespread practice of cohabitation, often by couples who seem unaware that it is gravely sinful, not to mention damaging to the stability of society. A little further on, he said: We all know how difficult it is to l...

Posting photos of pet cats with a slice of bread on their heads  is apparently the latest internet craze. It is a while since I read a newspaper regularly but now that I have an iPad I do flick through the Telegraph website over breakfast to see what people are excited about. Up there with the Leveson enquiry is the cat sandwich. Another important subject is planking. Wikipedia gives us a sober enough definition: Planking (or the Lying Down Game) is an activity consisting of lying face down in an unusual or incongruous location. Both hands must touch the sides of the body and having a photograph of the participant taken and posted on the Internet is an integral part of the game.[1] Players compete to find the most unusual and original location in which to play. The term planking refers to mimicking a wooden plank. Rigidity of the body must be maintained to constitute good planking. but Kym, the founder of iPlanking tells us that Planking requires discipline, stillness, pe...

There is a trend in films today (in fact on one site I saw it as a whole category to itself) where women are more accomplished at violence and nastiness than men. One of the reasons I thrilled to Sophie Scholl: The Final Days was that Julia Jentsch portrays Sophie Scholl as a women of immense strength without having to outblast the bad guys with guns, knives or karate. Some time ago I wrote about the White Rose movement which was run by Sophie and her brother Hans along with other young people advocating resistance to National Socialism. Their campaign involved graffiti and the distribution of leaflets. Sophie, Hans and Christoph Probst were tried in the "People's Court" and executed by guillotine. I was particularly moved by an exchange during the interrogation in which Scholl speaks of mentally ill children being taken off to be gassed or poisoned. When the other children asked where they were going, the nurses said that they were going to heaven. the interrogat...

I claimed for the loss of my hearing aid, thinking that I had lost it at the theatre. My insurance company paid out immediately. Some weeks later I found it in the Church office – I had in fact left it in the Church. Should I return the money to the insurance company or can I donate it to charity? You have acquired a sum of money in good faith which you are not entitled to in justice. The insurance company has a right to the money since it has paid out for a loss which did not in fact occur (even though you genuinely thought that it had, and there was no intention on your part to defraud the company.) Therefore it would be right to restore the money to the insurance company itself. This also works in favour of the common good, since insurance companies have to raise premiums in order to offset their risks. Although an individual payment will only have a small effect on the overall calculation of risk by the company, it is a part of such calculations. In other words, by returning th...

Dylan Parry represented the Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma yesterday at a meeting convened by Jamie Bogle of the Catholic Union  to explore ways of opposing the government's plans for same-sex "marriage". Members of the Coalition for Marriage were present as well as representatives from a number of other groups. You can see the full list at Dylan's post: Catholic groups unite forces to oppose 'gay marriage' - In promoting traditional marriage, we're all in this together! It is encouraging to see this grass roots opposition growing. The Coalition for Marriage petition has nearly reached half a million. If you have not signed, or if you can get a few more people to sign up, now is the time. Also a good time to send in any half-filled sheets of signatures - you can always get more forms. I do recommend that we all use quotation marks when writing about same-sex "marriage." Thinking about this, I wonder how long it will be before we are fin...

This just in from a reader: Men's retreat in August, with daily EF Mass The monks of Saint Joseph de Clairval Abbey in Flavigny, France, will again be giving a a five-day (silent) retreat for men this August, following the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. The retreat will be from Thursday 16th to Tuesday 21st August at Pantasaph in North Wales. Mass will be celebrated each day during the retreat according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. Here are links for the Retreat details and for Registration .

“ You have protected me from the assembly of the malignant ” (Ps 64.3) As well as being the patron of England, St George is the patron of Egypt, Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia. And of course, Georgia where there are 365 Churches dedicated to him. Thanks to the rise of irrational rationalism, even many Catholics go along with the idea that because there was a legend about St George, he must himself have been a legend. The dedication of Churches to him from the fourth century onwards rather tells against this fancy. We may provisionally accept the general consensus that he was born sometime between 256 and 283, that he was a soldier in the Imperial Guard at Nicomedia under Diocletian, that when the most savage of persecutions began, including the requirement that every soldier sacrifice to the false gods, St George openly professed his faith and was martyred. When I offer incense on t...

Photo credit: Father Ed Tomlinson's Blog Fathers James Bradley and Daniel Lloyd were ordained to the priesthood today at St Patrick's Soho. Congratulations to both of them and to the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham . They are the first priests of the Ordinariate who were not previously ministering as priests in the Anglican Church. Since Fr Bradley is the Communications Officer of the Ordinariate, we must allow a little grace before the photos and reports are up at the Ordinariate Portal ;-) In the meantime, you can read a report by Fr Ed Tomlinson . Fr Ray Blake has a couple of photos of the first blessings .

Aid to the Church in Need are holding a Night of Witness on Friday 17 May at Westminster Cathedral. Here is the progamme: 5.30pm Sung Mass to remember the modern-day martyrs to the Faith, concelebrated by Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi, Pakistan, Bishop Joannes Zakaria of Luxor, Egypt, and Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton. 6.30pm Rally for Religious Freedom on the cathedral piazza, celebrating our faith through speeches, music, drama, dance, poetry and film, with groups from Iraqi, Pakistani, Sudanese and Egyptian communities in the UK, as well as others. 7.30-8.30pm Solemn, candlelit vigil in Westminster Cathedral – in thanksgiving for the inspirational sacrifice of Christians today. The ACN website has more information . The above image is a reduced version of the front of the flyer. Here is a link to download the  full version . There are plenty of guest speakers and performers - including ooberfüse , the band that I met at the British Pakistani Christian ...

Catholicism Pure and Simple has all the details of new media evangelist Fr Robert Barron's forthcoming trip to England . He will be speaking in Durham, Liverpool, Birmingham and London to launch the Catholicism Series . The Centre for Catholic Formation in my own diocese of Southwark recently trialled the Catholicism series. You can read a review at Transformed in Christ , written by a catechist in the diocese.

Oi! Vatican! Are you 'aving a larf? I go away for 24 hours to lecture for some good Benedictine nuns and celebrate Mass for them, spending several hours each way on trains boats and buses and you decide during this period when I am away from the blog: 1. To announce that the SSPX have responded to the doctrinal preamble and that it only remains for the CDF and the Pope to consider it. And the Vatican Press Officer, Fr Lombardi, admits that it is encouraging and that there is a desire to reach a conclusion. (Texts found most easily at Rorate Caeli as well as other posts with analysis.) 2. To issue a Doctrinal Assessment of the US Leadership Conference of Women Religious along with a statement from Cardinal Levada . 3. To announce a Vatican Widget in honour of the anniversary of the election of Pope Benedict. OK, so n.3. was not as important as 1. and 2., but I have sent off for the widget eagerly in order to take up the promise that, as the English version of the communiq...

There is something satisfying about travelling the entire length of a railway line. Shortly I will be leaving for Waterloo where I shall take a train to Portsmouth Harbour. The catameran will then take me to Ryde, home of St Cecilia's Abbey, a thriving community of Benedictine nuns who sing the whole office and Mass in Latin every day. Their life is the traditional Benedictine life according to the rule. No surprise that they have a steady stream of vocations. I count a number of old friends among the community and it will be great to see them. Tomorrow morning I will be celebrating Mass for the community - Novus Ordo , entirely in Latin, sung according to the Solesmes conventions about as perfectly as it is possible here on earth. Here is a photo from a previous visit where I was celebrant for Vespers and Benediction. I think that I did clink the chains.

Tomorrow I will be travelling to the Isle of Wight to give a lecture to some holy and fearsomely learned nuns on the subject of efficacious and sufficient grace. I considered that their knowledge of the Fathers would humiliate me and therefore a post-Tridentine controversy which is part of a course I gave to the Carthusians would at least enable me to hold my head above water. At the last minute, I am wondering whether I should have chosen a weightier subject which has arisen on Fr Zuhlsdrof’s blog regarding the us of the thurible: To clink or not to clink.  There is a poll attached to the post and at the time of writing the clinkers are in a massive majority of 91% which goes to show how Fr Z attracts sound readers to his blog. I am certainly a clinker. Not only a double-tap for each incensing of the cross, but often a weaker clink when the pot is lowered in between – possibly misleading people into thinking that I have broken even more 1962 rubrics by giving three swings. At...

Here's a story that we all missed: US charity to fund abortion training for British medical students . Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) will provide money for students from Britain and Ireland to do two week placements at British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) clinics so they can learn how to kill babies in the womb (in a safe and legal way.) The problem being tackled by the MSFC and the BPAS is that increasingly, students are not really into destroying human life and would rather do something good instead. The $100K provided to 60-70 would-be abortionists results in 85% of them taking up this glamorous career path. Thanks to Neil Addison of the Religion Law Blog for the link to this story. He points out that during the 40 Days for Life campaign, the Guardian and BPAS repeatedly spoke of the 40 Days as an American style protest. Odd that there seems nothing wrong with American style funding for the training of abortionists.

At Rome, tempers are flaring up as Angry Roman centurions besiege Colosseum . The argument with the police is quintessentially Roman. Look at the video - at 0'26" in, there is a wonderful torrent of Roman dialect which will bring back fond memories to those who studied out there. Maaassimoooou! Claaaaudia! Mo che fannnno? Voyo manja er pane. Aoo!

BBC Essex has an article about Fr Byles whom I wrote about the other day. They have the above photo of a plaque in St Helen's Church in Chipping Ongar where he was Rector for eight years. The article also tells of a memorial plaque that is to be unveiled at Rossall Public School in Fleetwood, Lancashire, by Bishop Michael Campbell on 2 May in the school chapel. See: Titanic 100: The Essex priest who refused to leave passengers The article in the Catholic Herald by Fr Stewart Foster has now been put online: The priest who prayed the rosary and heard Confessions as the Titanic sank In the combox, Steve T. reminds us that there were three priests on the Titanic, as well as a Jesuit scholastic who left the ship at Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland. (See: The Priests Aboard Titanic .) Fr. Juozas Montvila and Fr. Joseph Peruschitz also refused places on the lifeboats and continued to minister to the people as the ship went down. I presume that they gave general absolution a...

Since our taxes are used to fund abortion, contraception, and other moral evils, is it a sin to pay income tax? Our Lord himself arranged for St Peter to pay the tax to Caesar. He provided the means by a miracle, but the tax was, in fact, paid. Similarly, St Paul told the Romans to be subject to the governing authorities, and to pay their taxes. (Rom 13.7) This teaching was accepted by the early Christians and is reflected in the Fathers of the Church. Bear in mind that government of the Roman empire included many unjust and cruel practices, as well as keeping law and order, and contributing to the good of the citizens. We are in an analogous situation today. The rule of law, the enforcement of contracts, the provision of public services, and the defence of our liberty all rely upon their being a government which has the means to provide these things. We may disagree with a particular government and some of its policies and laws, but the example of Our Lord, St Paul and the early C...

Being mercifully free of live television, I do not always pick up on what the latest craze is, but I think that this weekend we are in the grip of a feverish concentration on the Titanic so it might be worth trying to work Fr Byles into this Sunday's sermon. He was a parish priest from Essex who was travelling to conduct the wedding of his brother in Brooklyn. He paid £13 for his ticket. The website Measuring Worth calculates the value of that today as £1,000 using the retail price index, or £4,240 using average earnings. Either way, Fr Byles obviously valued the trip highly. When the ship struck the iceberg, Fr Byles was on deck saying his office. During the panic, he helped steerage passengers up to the boat deck, helped women and children get into the lifeboats, refused a place on the lifeboat himself, went among the passengers hearing confessions, prayed the rosary with those left on board, and went down with the ship, still saying the rosary with them I am grateful to Fr ...

Just who exactly is more opposed to the actual teaching of Vatican II as found in the texts of the Council? Sandro Magister today offered comments and published an article by John R T Lamont ( For the Lefebvrists, It's the Last Call to the Sheepfold .) Lamont uses a response to the Holy See by Fr Jean-Michel Gleize FSSPX to summarise the difficulties that the SSPX has with a few texts from Vatican II. He then lists a number of conciliar texts on the scriptures, the Church, the Eucharist and marriage and points out that in fact the SSPX accept all of these and that far more of the teaching of Vatican II than many theologians in Europe, North America, and Australasia. He then says: The vast majority of theologians in Catholic institutions in Europe, North America, and Australasia would reject most or all of these teachings. These theologians are followed by the majority of religious orders and a substantial part of the bishops in these areas. It would be difficult, for example, t...

There was some confusion earlier in the year about the approval of the extra-liturgical ceremonies of the Neocatechumenal Way. Today, Sandro Magister has an article about Pope Benedict's attitude in particular to the way in which Mass is celebrated in the Neocatechumenal Way: That Strange Mass the Pope Doesn't Like I have great admiration for the apostolic and evangelical zeal of the members of the Neocatechumenate. I am not particularly moved by arguments about them forming an "elite." Any group that ever did anything useful in the Church by way of apostolate was to some degree exclusive - this means nothing really much more than gathering an effective group together with a common purpose for the good. There have been many priestly vocations, in some cases reviving whole dioceses; in addition, the generosity of families in following the moral teaching of the Church is a fine example to others. However the Liturgy does look in need of major overhaul. This problem...

Cardinal Pell has gone up against Richard Dawkins in a televised debate (with added Twitter hashtag.) Not so much "Rumble in the Jungle" as "Thunder Down Under." The Sydney Morning Herald reported on the debate today (or yesterday or tomorrow - I have a hard enough time working out what time it is in America) anyway, here is a link to the article:  Dawkins and Pell battle it out in one hell of a debate You can see the full show on YouTube. I'm going to fire this up on my iPad in a moment and it will take the place of my bedtime reading tonight. H/T to the ever excellent "Morning Catholic must-reads" of Luke Coppen, editor of the Catholic Herald .

"Let no innovator dare to write against the use of Latin in the sacred rites." Well plenty of innovators have done so and nowadays you are thought a bit of a maverick if you write too much in favour of Latin in the sacred rites. Perhaps the Year of Faith and the worldwide re-examination of Vatican II that will be a part of it, might help continue to redress the balance. Although there is plenty of support for Latin on the Catholic blogosphere, I hear all the time from people who are looked on as weirdos if they even suggest a little bit of Latin in their Sunday novus ordo Mass. (Not sure where the graphic was from originally - it just arrived in my inbox. If you are the creator, drop me a note in the combox and I'll happily add a link to your blog or website.)

Photo credit: Mulier Fortis We were blessed at Blackfen to have the assistance of Fr Simon Heans of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham who gamely agreed to be deacon for the Maundy Thursday so that we could have High Mass in the usus antiquior . He also assisted at Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, both in the novus ordo.  The servers and MC for those services are all competent in both forms so we had a fair bit of mutual enrichment. There were quite a few confessions during Holy Week, with the biggest queues being after the services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  defénde nos in proélio  has mentioned the  Święcone  - the blessing of food on Holy Saturday, a universal Catholic custom which has been preserved especially by the Polish. It has to be on Holy Saturday at about midday because that is when the Easter Vigil finished until it was changed in 1955. (For more information, see  my post from last year .) We had a few more pe...

Una Voce Brasil asks for your prayers for their new apostolate. Danilo writes: Brazil is by far the largest catholic country but it is also the most secularized of all latin america. We're facing the challenges of abortion, gay unions, euthanasia and worst. The political persecution of the catholic religion and catholic morals is very hard. Like in your homeland, the crucifixes here are threatened by unfair legislation that forbids the image of our Lord in the public spaces. Here also grows the interest for the TLM despite the clerical persecution of traditional-mind catholics. Many young priests are giving a chance for the old form and they are discovering a deep sense of sacred and a new perspective of the liturgy, just like the Holy Father wrote in his letter to the bishops about the Motu Proprio . The challenge of secularism is found across the globe and it is good to hear of Catholics on "the far side of the world" (from our point of view) who are confident i...

One of the consolations of reading other priests' blogs is knowing that you are not alone. I find this, not only in general terms but in relation to some very specific questions such as the temptations of Christ (He was not simply "tempted" in every way that we are because He did not have concupiscence), the apostolic origins of clerical celibacy, the serious doubts about the authorship and dating of the Apostolic Tradition (which is not therefore an unimpeachable text for constructing liturgical reform). Those are just off the top of my head. Nowadays, I don't feel so much like a voice crying in the wilderness on these issues. Today I delighted to find another example. On his excellent blog, Mgr Charles Pope has written a piece on The Seating Plan at the Last Supper . Hint - Christ and the apostles were not sat round a table as depicted by, say, Leonardo Da Vinci. Therefore, by the way, even if we were to accept liturgical archaeologism as a sensible guide to t...

Alexander Tsiaras, mathematician and founder of a medical-imaging company, produced this video of the process of development of a baby from conception to birth. H/T Joseph Pearce

Amid the furore over his plans to promote gay marriage " because I am a conservative", Prime Minister David Cameron has issued an Easter Message . Cranmer has a good fisk of it over on his blog. He starts off by pointing out that Dave has confused Easter Week and Holy Week. The message is more or less what you expect from a British politician trying to "do religion" - the form of Christianity acceptable to politicians like Dave is basically a bland custard of niceness. The "values" of Christianity are compassion, generosity, grace, humility and love, and these make our country what it is – "tolerant, generous and caring." (Unless you want to wear a crucifix at work or run an adoption agency without agreeing to place children with gay couples.) I liked His Grace's response to this flannel: Those who have made our country what it is have been known to be manifestly intolerant, ungenerous and uncaring of that which is unjust, immoral o...

This image of the sky was the result of pointing a 4.1 meter telescope at the same patch of sky for 55 hours. Discover magazine links to an ultra-high resolution version in the article An ultradeep image that’s *full* of galaxies! . The 17,000 x 11,000 pixels version comes in at 250 Mb. The image contains 200,000 galaxies for you to zoom in on. Some of the galaxies are billions of light years away. The light left them not long after the universe was created. The author of the article observes: I’ve spent years studying all this, and it still sometimes gets to me: just how flipping BIG the Universe is! And this picture is still just a tiny piece of it: it’s 1.2 x 1.5 degrees in size, which means it’s only 0.004% of the sky! Considering the vastness of the universe, and our ability to study it, and to discover laws and constants that apply throughout its enormous breadth, should help us in our humility before God whose infinite wisdom created it. Even more, we should be humbled ...

A while ago you said that if a priest used the wrong words, the absolution in confession would be invalid. Would God really send someone to hell just because the priest made a mistake? I thought we left that sort of nonsense behind with Vatican II. People knew long before Vatican II that someone in a state of mortal sin who was unable to receive the sacrament of Penance would be saved if he was repentant. The Penny Catechism asked (question 294) “What special value has perfect contrition?” and the answer was: “Perfect contrition has this special value: that by it our sins are forgiven immediately, even before we confess them; but nevertheless, if they are serious, we are strictly bound to confess them afterwards.” If the reason for a person’s being unable to celebrate the sacrament of Penance properly is that the priest did not feel obliged to use the essential form given by the Church, it is he who will answer to God for it, not the penitent. We do not have to be immaculate to ...

Southwark Vocations have produced a DVD “The Calling” to promote priestly vocations in England and Wales. The film begins with a young man wondering about his vocation, and ends with him discerning that he has to try a vocation to the priesthood. Much of the DVD features a variety of priests and seminarians talking good sense about vocation to the priestly life in general and their own vocation in particular. There are sensible and down to earth comments on celibacy and on the importance of fidelity to the teaching of the Church. I liked the comment of one seminarian: “I think you should get up, follow Christ, be brave, and allow the Church to decide with you whether you have a vocation.” The DVD is professionally put together by Vast Media; it runs for 23 minutes and has an accompanying booklet which includes a lesson and workshop plans for use in schools and in parish groups. To purchase a copy (£10), email the Southwark Vocations Office . Speaking of the Southwark Vocati...

Crying children at Mass are material for news articles, blog posts, sage advice and rants. I've written myself in the Catholic Herald from time to time in the Catholic Dilemmas column, taking a fairly standard approach along the lines of how we must be considerate to each other, understand the difficulties of young parents, not be too fussy and so on. Matthew Warner has a good piece called What you should be thinking when you hear noisy kids at Mass and I agree with him. It is precisely because I am used to defending families from the "tut tut" brigade with conventional defences of occasionally noisy children that I was blown over by the article by Fr Ryan Erlenbush on Theology Today : Crying children call to mind the mystery of the Mass . Father reflects on the reaction that we should have to the sacrifice of the Cross and the way that infants can remind us of the drama of the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. Here is a taster: Let the sound of toddlers and infants ...

The Guardian report that I posted about yesterday had a segment on the question of abortion and mental health. This is an area where psychiatry has become highly politicised. On Mercator, Dr Pravin Thevathasan gives a brief summary of studies that reach widely differing conclusions (See: Shutting down the debate .) The study of Danish researcher, Trine Munk-Olsen concluded that there was no causal link between abortion and subsequent mental ill health. The studies of Professors Coleman and Ferguson found a large increase in risk of mental health problems. This July, there will be an international congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Liverpool - only those who find no link between abortion and mental health problems have been invited, it seems. An interesting point made by Dr Prevathasan is that Munk-Olsen's review stated: “the rates of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth.” This ...

Thanks to Neil Addison of the  Religion Law Blog  for passing on the Guardian video report on the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil and the pro-abortion demonstration last Friday. At the end, a pro-abortion campaigner has words that at once give encouragement to the pro-life cause, and at the same time teach us that for the pro-aborts, there just is no grasp of logic: "I think that what we're seeing here is the biggest threat to reproductive rights in this country for over forty years. I know what my mum fought for is now being threatened once again." Reproductive rights, of course, means the "right" to terminate a baby's life in the womb. We are a long way from victory for the unborn, but it is good to hear that the 40 Days for Life peaceful prayer vigils have had such a major impact. May more babies survive to love their mothers. The Guardian report is actually quite fair on the whole. This itself is an indication that the debate on abortion has mov...

Bram Harrison, also known as DJ Eye Tech, suffered brain damage two weeks before his 21st birthday after falling head-first off his bicycle. Harrison, now 34, was left with locked-in syndrome; the only part of his body he can deliberately move are his eyes and eye lids. (See the report in the Independent: Locked in, but still lost in music: UK's bravest DJ He can choose letters and words by blinking at them on a screen, is an acclaimed DJ, is known as a mischievous wit, has confidence in the advance of medical science, is currently learning Polish, and does not go along with the idea that he would be better off dead: I've definitely not got the same view as Tony Nicklinson ">Tony Nicklinson. I don't want people to think that locked-in syndrome is unbearable. I enjoy my rather limited life. One thing I would add: he is also an evangelist for life.