Posted on 05/08/2012 7:14:12 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
Melinda Gates: Poster billionaire for how a rotten Catholic education...
May 08, 2012 04:03 EST
By Carl E. Olson
... ends up promoting and spreading the culture of deathworldwide. Via The Daily Mail:
Facing backlash from the Catholic Church on an already controversial issue, Bill Gates' wife Melinda announced this week that contraception will be the primary goal of their foundation, with plans to revolutionize it globally.
And from the May 7th Newsweek piece, "Melinda Gates' New Crusade: Investing Billions in Women's Health":
Theres currently very little investment in contraceptive research and development. The single biggest funder, Darmstadt says, is the U.S. government, through the National Institutes of Health. Its an area thats really kind of stagnated, he says. One of the things that we see that we can do is to try to really stimulate that space.
For reproductive-health advocates, this is terrific news. For some conservatives, though, it will likely seem almost dystopian. Indeed, in response to an item about contraceptive research on the Gates Foundation website, The Catholic Heralds Phillips wrote, A horrid image comes to mind, of white-coated boffins hard at work in diabolical laboratories, devising new ways of depriving men and women of their conjugal dignity, their culture and their traditions.
Yet Gates can take comfort in the fact that even if the church hierarchy and its traditionalists dont support what shes doing, plenty of ordinary Catholics do. During her TEDxChange talk, she spoke of the Ursuline nuns who taught at her Dallas Catholic high school, nuns who made service and social justice a high priority. Through her work with the foundation, Gates said, I believe that Im applying the lessons that I learned in high school.
Within an hour of returning to her hotel, she received a message from some of those nuns. It was fantastic, she says, her eyes misting for a moment. They said, Were all for you. We know this is a difficult issue to speak on, but we absolutely believe that youre living under Catholic values. And it was just so heartening."
That's a rather strange definition of "heartening": women religious involved in encouraging and promoting anti-human, anti-life, and anti-Catholic practices and perspectives around the world. (And how shocking to see that the Ursulines belong to the LCWR.) I am tempted to say that Gates has taken a very "cafeteria Catholic" approach to her beliefs and actions as a Catholic, but I have no need to; she openly admits such is her approach:
Perhaps more importantly, theres her Catholic faith, which has always informed her work. From the very beginning, we said that as a foundation we will not support abortion, because we dont believe in funding it, she says. Shes long disagreed with the churchs position on contraception, and the Gates Foundation did some family-planning funding early in its history. Still, she went through a lot of soul-searching before she was ready to champion the issue publicly.I had to wrestle with which pieces of religion do I use and believe in my life, what would I counsel my daughters to do, she says. Defying church teachings was difficult, she adds, but also came to seem morally necessary. Otherwise, she says, were not serving the other piece of the Catholic mission, which is social justice. [emphasis added]
Read the entire piece. In other words, Mrs. Gates believes it is imperative to disregard and disobey Catholic teaching in order to be true to Catholic teaching. And to think that some people are convinced that Catholics are irrational! Perhaps Mrs. Gates and the Sisters who taught her could spend a little time reading Evangelium Vitae, especially this passage:
It is frequently asserted that contraception, if made safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. The Catholic Church is then accused of actually promoting abortion, because she obstinately continues to teach the moral unlawfulness of contraception. When looked at carefully, this objection is clearly unfounded. It may be that many people use contraception with a view to excluding the subsequent temptation of abortion. But the negative values inherent in the "contraceptive mentality"-which is very different from responsible parenthood, lived in respect for the full truth of the conjugal act-are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived. Indeed, the pro- abortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on contraception is rejected.
Wouldn't you choose a method that didn't involve chemicals which can triple thrombosis risk? A method that didn't involve a Class 1 carcinogen and an elevated risk for cervical cancer and breast cancer?
Wouldn't you choose a method that worked with, and not against, normal female sexual physiology?
Wouldn't you choose a method that could be used to achieve pregnancy, to space pregnancies, or to avoid pregnancy, depending on the choice the husband and wife made together?
Wouldn't you choose a method of family planning that didn't involve a documented tendency to slip-rip-and-drip, leading to an 18% user rate of unintended pregnancies?
If you had your choice, wouldn't you choose a method of family planning that cost nothing, and could be used successfully even if you lacked access to constant pharmaceutical supplies and medical back-up?
Wouldn't you choose a method that even after long-term use didn't leave you so damaged you couldn't get pregnant without stressful and expensive reproductive repair technologies?
Wouldn't you choose a method which didn't put endocrine disruptors in rivers and streams producing feminized freaky male fish and other male vertebrates with eggs in their testicles?
If you were pro-woman, pro-family planning, pro-sexual-health, and pro the choice to be in personal control of fertility, wouldn't you be for greater access to the one method that's not linked to higher transmission rates of STD's, not embryotoxic, strongly enhances communication and cooperation between husband and wife, and can't be used coercively by the State?
Ta-daa. Welcome to Natural Family Planning.
Try starving and watching your children go hungry
Then get back to me
Here’s a good video about the forces behind the corruptions of Catholicism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jABDBjlSzKE&feature=player_embedded
The story of Adam and Eve is parable, not history. In order for Gen 1:19 to stand, the image spoken of must be complete in every detail and w/o reservation. That means man has the exclusive power and right to create life in his image also, which is also the image of God. The image is that of a sentient rational being.
"Personal life...a person (human being) is a composite creature both spiritual and physical:
There is only life and life in any world is physical. A sentient rational being requires physical machinery to perform the various functions of sentience and rationality. The spirit is that nonphysical component which is resultant from the exercise of those functions and comprises the machine independent person and personality that depends on physical machinery for existence. There is no nonphysical spirit that exists animated on it's own, nor is any required to animate any physical object, plant, animal, or in particular- man.
"...when it does, and life is transmitted to a new generation, we are cooperators with the Lord and Giver of Life.
The image of Gen 1:19 is complete and given w/o reservation, that includes free will- which is an integral part of the image. There is no cooperation required. In fact, in order for free will to be free, it requires only the decisions and actions of parties creating the life and that may,or may not include God.
What man can not do is extend his life, or his progeny on his own. To do that requires knowledge and ability which was never given as those things are resultants from an instantiation of the image, not part of it.
" Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One form us both within our mothers? (Job 31:15) For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mothers womb. (Psalm 139:13)
It makes no sense in the light of this to say the Holy Spirit is only the Lord and Giver of "spiritual" life. "
Does he actually knit folks together, or is this parable? I know that the physics of this world is complete and allows for both life and procreation to exist as they are observed w/o any outside force at all. To understand the parable though requires that one know that the "knitting" occurred and was complete before the world was.
And if a person tells you contraceptives Do solve the problem, they're just aiding in your exploitation, like a pimp trying to keep his sex chattels unpregnant and exploitable. A woman in that situation needs to get outta there. She needs rescue, not rubbers.
Interesting, unique exegesis. Have you a link here I can learn more about is this school or style of interpretation? Is there a church that approaches the texts this way? Or are these your original ideas?
Without the subjugation of Western women in particular and all women in general, the Caliphate will never be formed under universal sharia law.
The moral battle lines are drawn.
I pray Melinda Gates reconsiders her position on this, because she is on the wrong side, no matter how well-intentioned she thinks she is being.
I am not sure having read the original article makes a difference for my second question though.
Yes, I read the linked piece.
No, I don't allow others to do my thinking for me.
I think Melinda Gates is very much mistaken about contraception. It does not lead to healh and happiness. Every country that has universal access to contraception also has widespread abortion, increasing promiscuity, more out-of-wedlock births, increasing STD's, and plunging marriage rates and marital birthrates.
Give me one example where this isn't true. I'm looking for evidence, and reasonable inference from evidence.
Those 100,000 women annually die in childbirth after unintended pregnancies and 600,000 babies born to women who didnt want to be pregnant die in the first month of life be damned. Right? You keyboard jockeys know best.
Perhaps you should read Humana Vitae, the Encyclical issued on this subject in 1968, predating any "keyboard jockeys". It accurately predicted the personal and societal damage that whould be brought about by birth control and abortion.
(2) Health advocates who work with the poor recognize NFP as a particularly good method for the very low income because it is not dependent on regular pharmaceutical purchases, has no physical side effrects, entails no medical risks, fosters more male/female communication and cooperation, and cannot be used coercively by the state.
(3) Read and learn. Empowering the Poor with NFP (Link)
It’s about options. You clearly have issues with giving people options
She is notpushing her faith on others, she is giving woman options. Did is miss the part where she wanted to force it on anyone?
Margaret Sanger said 100 years ago that contraception would solve all these problems, and instead it has enormously escalated them.
You clearly have issues with evidence.
Anyone who believes that discussions of birth control do not include methods that prevent the embedding of a fertilized egg or the use of abortifacient drugs is either ignorant or dishonest.
If you think that Catholics and other Christians must remain silent in the public square about our religious beliefs and values you are wrong. We have a right and an obligation to speak out to the same degree as any other opinion or advocacy.
We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice, mercy, prudence, honesty are Christian virtues and actions that support them are to be expected and even desirable. In any diverse community, tolerance may be an important working principle, but it's never an end itself. For a Catholic or like minded Protestant tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil and any process that destroys a human life as the intended consequence of the action is a grave evil.
Democratic pluralism does not mean that Catholics should be quiet in public about serious moral issues because of some misguided sense of good manners or a subservience of religious principle to secularism. A healthy democracy requires vigorous moral debate to survive. Real pluralism demands that people of strong beliefs advance their convictions in the public square, peacefully, legally and respectfully, but energetically and without embarrassment. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the public conversation. Those who would suggest or demand that we be silent are at the very least suspect for a number of reasons.
Peace be with you.
God is Sacred. In the total and non-contingent sense.
Human Life is Sacred. ...as a direct consequence, since it is made by the Divine Creator (in the case of the human soul, each one DIRECTLY and INDIVIDUALLY created) in the image and likeness of God.
Sex is Sacred. Yes. Human sexual union is sacred, because sex is where life comes from. That means, in cooperation with God. God is the Primary Cause, the parent’s sexual union is the Secondary Cause.
These are truths of the Judeo-Christian faith and realities of the Universe. Nothing’s more basic than that.
That’s about the size of it. Nothing left to say.
Within an hour of returning to her hotel, she received a message from some of those nuns. It was fantastic, she says, her eyes misting for a moment. They said, Were all for you. We know this is a difficult issue to speak on, but we absolutely believe that youre living under Catholic values. And it was just so heartening.”
Why do nuns need birth control?
Answer: they don't. But they (the liberal "post-Catholic" nuns) are extranrdinaily bonded to secularf feminism. Also, erhaps because they have never USED it, they have no idea how unnatural, unhealthy, and anti-woman birth control really is.

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