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 death—worldwide. 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":
There’s 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. “It’s an area that’s 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 Herald’s 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 don’t support what she’s 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 I’m 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, ‘We’re all for you. We know this is a difficult issue to speak on, but we absolutely believe that you’re 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, there’s 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 don’t believe in funding it,” she says. She’s long disagreed with the church’s 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, “we’re 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.
A fool and their money are soon parted.
“Social justice” = Communism/Anti-Christian.
:: “One of the things that we see that we can do is to try to really stimulate that space.” ::
Just what Sandra Fluke was looking for, I suppose.
Some things just don’t add up.
It might seem that, more contraceptive research, etc. will reduce abortion, and reduce the need for abortion.
But then, we have seen what has happened since the ‘60s, when our culture was transformed in many ways.
One way the culture was transformed had to do with sex behavior. Traditional ideas of sex morality were thrown out, replaced by the idea that it’s okay to have sex outside marriage, any number of partners, any gender of partners.
Against this backdrop, we also have readily available birth control. We have some birth control such as condoms available over the counter, without prescription. Yet, the real world experience has been that the incidence of abortion and out of wedlock childbirth are both very high, at a time of readily available contraception.
So what’s really going on? We changed the culture so that it’s okay to have sex anytime. We also have readily available contraception so that those who want to have sex are not “punished”, as Barack Obama might say, with a baby, as a consequence of what they have done.
Perhaps the real problem is not a lack of birth control pills, but a lack of values, or a lack of any morality?
But then, to be good liberals, apparently we’re not supposed to view any issue in any moral context. So with this issue, we don’t talk about the morality of the sex outside marriage, instead we talk of how do we prevent unwanted consequences of sex. We take for granted that the sex behavior will happen, and how do we deal with the life problems created, after the fact.
Maybe we have our Mystery Woman, our Whore of Babylon? I always believed that she would be a real, human woman with the power to lead the whole world astray...
——“I had to wrestle with which pieces of religion do I use and believe in my life,——
Obviously poorly catechized. No notion of the teaching authority of the Church.
There is another aspect of this (beyond the Catholic issues presented) which Ms Gates is missing.
Since day one ‘overpopulation’ has been presented as a problem that is caused by women. By focussing her efforts on women and contraception, Ms. Gates is allying herself with this paradigm:
Population = problem
Controlling women = solution
This is VERY dangerous for women’s human rights, as we have witnessed in China. Ends-justify-the-means tactics ALWAYS go after the people in society with less status and fewer rights ... hence women and children are frequent targets.
The Gates Foundation has done good work the world over with many of their programs ... yet they are turning onto a very dangerous path for women.
There is also the issue of cultural imperialism which is being ignored.
So, there are other criticisms of Ms Gates’ approach beyond those found in Catholic doctrine.
-—But then, we have seen what has happened since the ‘60s, when our culture was transformed in many ways.
One way the culture was transformed had to do with sex behavior. Traditional ideas of sex morality were thrown out, replaced by the idea that it’s okay to have sex outside marriage, any number of partners, any gender of partners.
Against this backdrop, we also have readily available birth control.——
The Pill wasn’t the backdrop, but the cause.
The result was predicted:
Consequences of Artificial Methods
17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the
doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the
consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first
consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital
infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is
needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and
especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to
keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break
that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows
accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a
woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to
being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer
considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.
Who can argue that this hasn’t happened?
The most astounding prediction:
Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power
passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the
precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to
resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as
are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family
difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those
contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard
this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well
happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social
life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined
to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to
intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.
-—Pope Paul VI, 1968 “Humanae Vitae”
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
All Leftists are utilitarians at heart. People are to be used to produce goods and wealth so their betters in government can bring about their utopian goals. People are disposable for the “common good.”
Christians live their lives by the standard Jesus set: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as you do yourself.”
This war between good and evil will go on until Jesus returns.
You should see today’s Washington Post, full page ad inviting Catholics to renounce the faith and the Church because of contraception. Some outfit called Freedom From Religion, claiming to be a charity. It is a full fledged war. I don’t think our bishops get it yet.
“contraception”
THAT makes a bad Catholic? Well, then, the author had better be prepared to label 99.9% of all Catholics as bad. My wife is Catholic and used contraception. So did her sisters and every female family member. I have never met a Catholic woman that didn’t.
Catholics who believe they can pick and choose what they want to agree with are no different than the non-Catholics who follow their own inclinations yet claim to be led by the Holy Spirit.
No matter what their intentions, denying that they are to be subject to those Christ has placed in authority over them is the first step in the worship of their Most High and Holy Self.
Just like those who refused to accept the priests Moses appointed, such folks are defying the will of God and proclaiming that they refuse to bear their cross and follow Christ. It's no surprise that such folks, who believe they can dictate terms to Christ, generally end up in league with the Humanist agenda at least to the extent that they're happy to help spread division among those Christians who do take up their cross and follow Christ.
Those burdens that are common to all mankind are not the cross we must bear. Our cross is the dead weight of self that has to be uprooted and then dragged along behind us as we try to live for Christ rather than for ourselves. Those who hold tight to beliefs that begin and end with self are on the broad highway to destruction no matter how they reinterpret Scripture to comfort themselves along the way.
Birds of a feather flock together. Hang out with actual Catholics.
When the Vice President of the United States, who publicly calls himself "Catholic", voices on national TV his support of same-sex marriage, and is not read the riot act by his local bishop, then you know the bishops don't get it.
Holy Matrimony is one of our Church's sacraments. It will be difficult for the laity to support it when the bishops sit on their hands.
“actual Catholics.”
Yeah, no Catholics unless you deem them to be. Right. Gotcha.
When you have everything you want, then the problem becomes getting rid of the things you don’t want. She just thinks there are too many people and she wants to make them go away.
You've personally met all Catholic women?
My wife and I NEVER have. Nice to meet you.
Melinda Gates - She screwed her boss Bill and became very rich.
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