The Sheepcat

Couple Reverses Sterilization

A friend of Radical Catholic Mom's tells how she and her husband decided to reverse the vasectomy he'd had done before they reverted to the Catholic faith. It's a remarkable story, concisely told, and I enjoyed this remark:

Unfortunately I don’t think that NFP is presented nearly enough [in RCIA] and one of its pitfalls is that some of the best NFP stories are from larger families. People see this and automatically think that NFP is only appropriate if you want to raise a baseball team or something which is totally not the case.

Critic of Robert Latimer's Alleges Intimidation

Mark Pickup at HumanLifeMatters writes,

I have received threatening communications designed to intimidate me from writing or making posts that portray Robert Latimer in a negative light. Therefore, I am republishing an earlier article in fuller detail about the Robert Latimer case, complete with references. I don't submit to any form of intimidation or threats.

Previous post: Robert Latimer demands "honesty." Lord, grant me charity. I really struggle to summon any good will towards this manipulative child-killer.

Link thanks to Lydia at WWWTW.

Bella Is Coming

Bella is finally due to open in Toronto on April 11. Friends who saw it either at the Toronto International Film Festival (where it won the People's Choice Award) or at special preview screenings say it's really worth seeing.

Gotta say, I find Bella's publicity site waaay overproduced. If this were a futuristic action flick, I could see some value in whiz-bang graphics, but for a warm story about human relationships, is a home-page image that moves in synch with the visitor's mouse really necessary? "Stills" are called that for a reason!

C-484

Margaret Somerville nails it.

Meanwhile, 70% of respondents to an Angus Reid poll (not sponsored by any client) are in favour of proposed legislation that would make it a separate crime if a fetus dies when a mother is attacked. A previous Environics poll, released last October, reportedly found that

Even among those Canadians who support unrestricted abortion for the full nine months of pregnancy, 55% support "legislation making it a separate crime to injure or kill a foetus during an attack on the mother."

Links via Big Blue Wave.

The Water Cure

Water torture. Intrinsically evil a century ago, intrinsically evil evermore. The New Yorker has the non-scoop.

The public became inured to what had, only months earlier, been alarming revelations. As early as April 16, 1902, the New York World described the “American Public” sitting down to eat its breakfast with a newspaper full of Philippine atrocities:
 
It sips its coffee and reads of its soldiers administering the “water cure” to rebels; of how water with handfuls of salt thrown in to make it more efficacious, is forced down the throats of the patients until their bodies become distended to the point of bursting; of how our soldiers then jump on the distended bodies to force the water out quickly so that the “treatment” can begin all over again. The American Public takes another sip of its coffee and remarks, “How very unpleasant!” 

“But where is that vast national outburst of astounded horror which an old-fashioned America would have predicted at the reading of such news?” the World asked. “Is it lost somewhere in the 8,000 miles that divide us from the scenes of these abominations? Is it led astray by the darker skins of the alien race among which these abominations are perpetrated? Or is it rotted away by that inevitable demoralization which the wrong-doing of a great nation must inflict on the consciences of the least of its citizens?”

Thanks to Eric for the tip.

Prayer Request for Priest for Life

An urgent prayer request today came from an address I don't recognize.

Dear Friends for Life:  This morning as he was leading our Lenten Mission, FR. Jim Whelan, Head of Priests for Life Canada collapsed in the sacristy due to a massive heart attack.  He is currently in grave condition at the St. Catharines General Hospital.  PLEASE pray for the recovery of our courageous Fr. Whelan, Apostle of Life!!!!    Our Lady of Guadalupe, Intercede for Us!!!

So far there's no confirmation or update on the Priests for Life Canada website.

Update (25 Feb): Puff regretfully informs me that Fr Whelan has passed away. May he rest in peace.

Scolding Saves Comatose Woman Doctors Might Have Unplugged

Yvonne Sullivan had been comatose for two weeks, and doctors were considering taking her off life support, but she started breathing on her own two hours after her husband, Dom, gave her "a stern talking-to." Five days later she regained consciousness, and she has now made a full recovery.

Link thanks to StatGuy.

Ronald Reagan on Abortion

Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
--Ronald Reagan.

Bishop McManus Defends Catholic Education

God bless The Most Rev. Robert J. McManus, S.T.D., Bishop of Worcester, for his statement on the teen pregnancy conference involving Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.

More links on the story at AmP, including a counter-conference with Dawn Eden as keynote speaker.

French Priest Recovers Ukrainian Holocaust Stories

Fr Patrick Desbois has been travelling the Ukrainain countryside to hear and record the testimonies of witnesses to some of nearly a million and a half murders of Ukrainian Jews by the Nazis. Most were shot or buried alive. Fr Desbois has helped to locate many mass graves.

The Memorial of the Shoah exhibits some of these testimonies. Mykola Kristitch was six years old when he saw a mass execution in 1941. Perhaps it's my imagination, but I hear something of a six-year-old's voice as he speaks, as if part of him had been so seared by the experience that he never changed.

I'll stretch my central Europe category to include this. Link via T19.