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A father who takes his child to a circus knows that the child will point excitedly when they see an ice cream stand. The father who loves his child buys the child ice cream so the child is happy. Then, moments after the child will see a cotton candy stand and again point excitedly to get cotten candy. The father who says no makes his child unhappy with him but he knows better than the child does — too much sugar is is not good for the child even though the child doesn’t realize it.
So much are we like the child in this story and the father is like our G-d. And so much like this story is how we can tackle a problem such as casual media theft in our culture. Americans are obsessed with media, it is our candy and our ice cream. We gobble it up and we’re seemingly always hungry for more. We live on it like a diet plan and when we can’t afford it any more we so easily resort to stealing it. G-d’s plan for us is to limit how much money that most of us have so that we don’t over indulge ourselves. If you don’t believe this, consider the fact that over 90% of the people in this world are by US standards poor. G-d has this in his plans — protect us from indulging by limiting what it is we can afford.
A rebellious child runs away from his father and goes off and takes the cotton candy that the father did not get for him. The child eats cotton candy, hot dogs, popcorn, and soda and then later when he returns to his father he is sick and malnourished.
In summary, this is really what casual media theft is. Its simply saying ‘no’ to G-d, and then going off and having as much as we possibly can without paying for it. This has serious consequences. First, we overconsume media and escapism becomes a way of life. It encourages sloth. Secondly, we lose respect for people’s properties and over time desensitize ourselves to what really matters — what G-d wants for us.
If you don’t believe me then take it from someone who feels empty the more media I consume and less time I spend with other people and with Christ. Take it from the thousands of people who play massive multiplayer online role playing games like Star Wars Galaxies that have ruined friendships, families and marriages. Because its so much easier to not live your life than to live it and listen to your G-d because he knows what is best for you far more than you ever could.
A loving father is one that forgives. The loving father might chide the child and punish him for his acts but a child that is sorry will regain his father’s love ten-fold.
In essense G-d wants us to love Him and follow Him. But He knows we fail and if you repent, He’s going to love you even more because He knows you’re going to make an attempt to follow Him even more.
Following Christ and following Him can sometimes be hard, and life is. Look at all the suffering in the world and anyone can attest to it, pain is part of life as is disappointment. But let’s be clear, G-d’s plan for each of us is better for us than anything we can think of. So we simply must place our trust in Him and hope and love with all faith that in the end when the world ends, this will be rewarded.
I write to you today with the news that New Jersey has voted ‘no’ to spending state money on Stem Cell research. This is both a good and bad thing. First, with Jersey taxes being so ridiculously high, its good that we’re not spending additional money on something even more burdensome. This is bad because supporting morally right stem cell research is a good thing to do. The question is then, what is morally right stem cell research? We must find the answer because states are proposing to do research in this promising area and we must guide our legislature in the right way.
Lets begin with some basic information. Respect for human life is a center point of living a life of Christ. Life is more precious than any thing that we have ever been given. Valuing that life, from its beginning to its natural end is important to do because it demonstrates to G-d that you and I love life as much as He does. It is from this viewpoint of life that the question of ‘Is Stem Cell Research right or wrong?’ can be addressed.
Human life is most precious of all life for humans carry within them a soul, a tiny piece of the infinite G-d, perfect and divine in every way that G-d is. So much does G-d love you that he was willing to come to this world in human form and endure suffering and death just for you! This is so that you could come to know him and obtain one day the gift of living by his side for all eternity. But, I digress. Because you carry such a gift of a godlike presence within you (note the lower-case g), your life has value beyond measure. So do the lives of everyone else.
We as people are called to use our lives to help the lives of others. Unless it is in the act of defending another’s life, we should look to help others without irreparably harming our own precious life. Stem cell research can be right in many ways, following this consistent guideline.
First, adult stem cell research which has remarkable promise is certainly a right thing to do. This is when a human (no matter the age) uses cells that have the ability to reproduce into other forms without harming the human self. Since the body can reproduce the missing stem cells, they are replenished soon after extraction. Volunteering for this is like giving blood, a noble and wonderful thing to do for others.
Now on to the tricky part of embryonic stem cell research. When harvested from unused organs that don’t impact the life of a embryo or newly born human, this type of stem cell is perfectly fine and moral. Its important to pay attention to the consistency of my message – this is simply life using itself to help others without causing irrepable harm. Since this is the case for a baby, the child no longer needs its embryonic cells and thus it causes the child no harm to give them up for others.
The only time embryonic stem cell harvesting is wrong is when my message of life is no longer followed. This would be when harvesting the cells comes from the destruction or irreparable harming of one human to benefit another. To kill or permanently damage an embryo or a child to harvest their stem cells is thus wrong.
The question becomes more sticky because some will argue that an embryo isn’t a human life yet and thus to grow embryos to kill them is perfectly right. Of course, this gets into the question of ‘when does life begin?’ and quite simply, no one really knows exactly when this happens. G-d has eluded to it in scripture as occuring before the baby is born as in one (of many) examples, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child lept in her womb” (Luke 1:41) which indicates that the child was happy to hear Mary’s arrival, just as his mother Elizabeth was. The child had the ability to sense emotion and thus must indeed be alive. I will plan to write more on this question as time goes on.
The Church thus maintains in order to “play it safe”, life begins at conception and although it could be debated still, there’s really no scientific way to observe it by measurement. So I maintain that from the moment of conception, the preciousness of life must be maintained. Thus, harvesting cells in an destructive way from an embryo (i.e., post-conception, pre-birth) of a human beign for any reason is morally wrong.
I woke up today to the Michael Smerconish program on the radio, and apparently the police had very recently captured John Timoney, the lead suspect of the October 31st murder of Philadelphia police officer Charles Cassidy. Of course, this brought up some sort of discussion of whether or not the death penalty should be applied to John. Much of the frustration over this case is not only from the barbaric murder of officer Cassidy, but the past killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Smerconish was attempting to capture the moment of hatred towards the alleged barbaric act of Timoney. The goal was to preserve this moment so that potentially — years down the road — we wouldn’t have crowds of people supporting Timoney and attempting to get him off the death row.
Although I strongly disagree with Smerconish’s attitudes by feeling his objective is not good natured, it brings up an important question — is it right to take the life of someone who took another’s life?
Capital punishment has been stated by the Church morally to be wrong in almost all cases,
“Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. If, however, nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.” – Catholic Catechism, 2267.
Simply stating that unless the aggressor can not be stopped from killing further human lives, the death penalty is indeed wrong. Of course, now that Timoney is no longer a threat to any other human life, killing him would indeed be murder and thus be a grave sin.
My take on this is to explain the position a bit further. First you have to understand the definition of murder that the Church has. Murder is the intentional act of killing another human being unless in the defensive act of preserving human life (including self-preservation). Let us not kid around here, the Truth is: murder is being committed by the death penalty for it is not an act of defense. It is wrong. A non-lethal solution such as prison is the right thing to do.
We as people are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps. We must never kill another human. We have to keep our tempers in check and guard against the ‘heat of the moment’ where we’d like to kill someone for killing another.
When Christ was brought before the leaders of the Jewish temple, he was accused in being in league with Satan and was thus condemned to death on a cross. Even though Christ knew this was going to happen, he didn’t strike his accusers down — albeit he would have been right to do so. No, Christ’s message is one of a pure love, a love that always leaves the door open to forgiveness and repentance.
Cassidy and Faulkner have ended their journeys here on this Earth. But Timoney’s journey hasn’t. There must always be given time to him to repent and change his ways, and make up to us as best he can for what was taken.
Christ says, (Mat. 5:44) “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” If Timoney is society’s enemy, he too should be loved and given this chance. For Cassidy’s family, this might be quite possibly the hardest thing they will ever have to do in their entire lives: forgive him. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?”
Christ’s message is a hard one to swallow but it is necessary that we do so. If we are to be like Him, we must aspire to be like His love, a more perfect and wholesome love than what is conventional. For if He could forgive even Timoney, there would be even greater hope for us and our salvation too. Love like Christ.
