Posts

Showing posts with the label Downs Syndrome

Religious community for girls with trisomy

Thanks to Berenike for this lovely story posted on her blog Laodicea: Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb . This is a small contemplative Benedictine community called Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb . There are seven sisters, five of whom have Downs syndrome. They have recently moved to a new location "near a large Benedictine Monastery". (That would be Fontgombault.) 90% of children with Downs Syndrome are killed before seeing the light of day. Small as it is, this community's charming and gentle example deserves to echo around the globe as a testament that people are not worthless just because they have trisomy.
Read more

Chaput speaks up for children with Downs Syndrome

Image
Archbishop Charles Chaput has written a forthright essay for First Things about out duty towards children with Downs Syndrome (See: Conscience, Courage, and Children With Down Syndrome .) As he points out: Studies show that more than 80 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are now terminated in the womb. They’re killed because of a flaw in one of their chromosomes—a flaw that’s neither fatal nor contagious, merely undesirable. Archbishop Chaput refers to a Guardian article which lamented the fact that false positives in testing for Downs Syndrome have led to the "scandalous and disgraceful" killing of "normal" babies. The irony of this blatantly eugenicist assertion is obviously lost on the supposedly liberal and "right-on" Guardian. There seems to be no embarrassment at all about asserting that killing the "normals" is disgraceful while killing the babies with Downs ("defectives" perhaps?) is acceptable. Kypros Nicolai...
Read more

Great video in support of life

H/T to Fr Ray Blake for this family video which powerfully illustrates the value of a thbe life of a little girl with trisomy. The doctors said it would be blessing if she died. The family's love shows that it was a blessing that she was allowed to live and that "God doesn't make mistakes."
Read more

"I may have Down’s Syndrome but I am a person first"

Many thanks to Pat Buckley of the European Life Network for an excellent follow-up to my post Downs Syndrome - not a reason for extermination . The following is from an SPUC paper on abortion : In May 2003, the International Down Syndrome Screening Conference was held in London. A group of people with Down’s Syndrome had asked if they could speak at the conference but were not allowed to. They turned up anyway and one of them, Anya Souza, was finally allowed to say something about her own condition. She said: “I can’t get rid of my Down’s Syndrome, but you can’t get rid of my happiness. You can’t get rid of the happiness I give others either. It’s doctors like you that want to test pregnant women and stop people like me being born. Together with my family and friends I have fought to prevent my separation from normal society. I have fought for my rights… I may have Down’s Syndrome but I am a person first.”
Read more

Downs Syndrome - not a reason for extermination

Image
There is an interesting Press Association article today about the recent news that more babies are being born with Downs Syndrome. In 2006, 749 babies who were born had Downs Syndrome. It is certainly good news that more babies with Downs Syndrome are being allowed to live. However, there is some obfuscation here. The Government's National Statistics website reports that there were 669,801 live births in 2006. They say that one in a thousand babies born have Downs Syndrome. This is a misleading statistic in that a large percentage of babies conceived with Downs Syndrome are aborted before birth. (In 2006 there were over 200,000 abortions in the UK according to the Government's statistics.) What we need to know is how many babies are conceived with Downs Syndrome and how many are actually allowed to live despite the pressure of prenatal tests and the ready availability of the "termination of pregnancy" (i.e. the killing of the Downs Syndrome baby.) The AP report puts ...
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

Saint Gabriel

Image
The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai...
Read more

Plenary indulgences not impossible

Dilexit Prior in Letters from a Young Catholic asked some useful questions today about indulgences. I thought it would be best to do a post here especially to cover the controversial question of detachment from venial sin. But first the other questions: The conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence Pope Paul VI set down a number of norms relating to indulgences at the end of Indulgentiarum Doctrina . Norm 7 states: To acquire a plenary indulgence it is necessary to perform the work to which the indulgence is attached and to fulfil three conditions: sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. It is further required that all attachment to sin, even to venial sin, be absent. If this disposition is in any way less than complete, or if the prescribed three conditions are not fulfilled, the indulgence will be only partial, except for the provisions contained in n.11 for those who are “impeded.” It is worth reading the other norms bec...
Read more

Portiuncula indulgence tomorrow (and indulgences generally)

Image
Tomorrow, 2 August, you can gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions ( see below ) by visiting a parish Church and there reciting the Our Father and the Creed . This is called the Portiuncula indulgence and goes back to St Francis of Assisi. Fr Z has the details . Don't forget that you can also gain a plenary indulgence by visiting a Church on the day of the titular feast, and there reciting the Our Father and the Creed . I made a list of other indulgences: please see the post Plenary indulgences for particular days which has a link to the list. The post has some background information which you may find helpful since indulgences are not well understood today - which is not surprising since indulgences are not included in most Catholic education curricula, and most priests never preach about them. Therefore many Catholics are left with whatever silly, half-baked, ill-informed nonsense about indulgences happens to be current. If you want to understand the theology...
Read more

Our Easter Faith: Not a Pious Crème Fraiche

Image
In public life, some basically well-meaning figures have the graciousness to wish us well at Easter and to recognise the importance of the Christian feast day. Perhaps they might assure us that their thoughts are with us at this time. That is kind of them and in Christian charity we should thank them for their kindness, but Easter should be a great deal more than that for us. We must believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the grave, in the flesh, and lives for eternity. We cannot treat Easter as a jolly holiday that heralds spring, or the remembrance of a significant event from the past. It must change us today and every day, change who we are and what we do. The Christian faith cannot be a mild custard or blancmange of religiosity. (I am showing my age. Nowadays, I should say that it cannot be reduced to a pious crème fraiche .) We bow down and adore the King of Kings, risen from the tomb, who, “[…] continues for ever,...
Read more

Blessing of the New Painting of St Bede at Clapham Park

Image
This morning, the parish priest at Clapham Park, Fr Marcus Holden, blessed a new picture of the parish's patron, Saint Bede, painted by James Tildsley. It is sited over a recently installed side altar near the rear of the Church. The altar itself was acquired from Antique Church Furnishings . The website gives the information that the altar was built and carved by a nun in a convent near Liverpool. It is a beautiful piece of work and it is always a joy when such works of art find a suitable and dignified home. The inscription on the gradine is AMANS AMATUS AMOR. The sellers translate this as “Loving is the object of love” which is a reasonable stab at “dynamic equivalence”. Today the parish's relic of St Bede was exposed for veneration in its distinctive brightly-coloured reliquary. After the blessing, there was High Mass with Fr Holden as celebrant, Fr Littleton deacon, and myself subdeacon. That gave me the enjoyable task of chant...
Read more