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Kay Pharmacy in Grand Rapids, Mich., looks like any other pharmacy. But ... some things are not for sale: condoms and other forms of birth control. Owner Mike Koelzer sent a letter to his customers in 2002, advising them that he would no longer be filling prescriptions for contraceptives. "I was and am willing to lose the business in order to not be a part of something I don't agree with. ...While the number of pharmacies that refuse to sell contraceptives remains relatively small... Brian Bundy is one of those pharmacists. That's why he was fired from a pharmacy in...

The Islington Council, by trying to force a civil marriage registrar to participate in homosexual domestic partnership ceremonies, perpetrated a "violation" of her dignity and "created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment." In unexpectedly strong language, the Central London Employment Tribunal has ruled that Lillian Ladele, a Christian civil marriage registrar, cannot be forced to act contrary to her conscience in conducting homosexual domestic partnership ceremonies. The panel ruled, "Islington Council rightly considered the importance of the right of the gay community not to be discriminated against but did not consider the right of Miss Ladele as a...

 Catholic Morality: Life in Christ Catholic morality is about life: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10) Faith & baptism give us new life in Christ. That life involves far more than simply following a set of rules. This article provides an overview of basic principles of Catholic morality. It is essential to know these principles: they are the how-to manual for living fully your new life, for obtaining that abundant life Christ has promised you. The Catholic Catechism starts its section on Catholic morality with St. Leo the Great's beautiful words: Christian, recognize...

Obama Effectively F-Bombed His Own Church with Improper Campaign Speech The Internal Revenue Service has cleared the United Church of Christ of accusations that it violated its tax exempt status by hosting Barack Obama’s “A Politics of Conscience.” The IRS’s letter to the United Church of Christ cites the same points that we did: even though Barack Obama’s “A Politics of Conscience” contained campaign-related content, the UCC did everything possible to prevent the Obama campaign from misusing its resources for electioneering. It would therefore be hardly fair to hold the United Church of Christ accountable for Barack Obama’s decision to...

Dear Senator Obama: Our common denomination, the United Church of Christ, has a suddenly serious legal and financial problem with the Internal Revenue Service. You, personally, are the cause of this problem. Candidly? I think you owe it to those of us who are your fellow congregants to help repair the damage that you have done. ...UNSURPRISINGLY, ALL OF THIS resulted in a complaint being filed with the IRS following your presentation. In addition to your speech and the stories featured by the UCC's own website, the complaint cites numerous media accounts describing your appearance as a campaign event. This...

In addition to widening revelations about racist and/or anti-Semitic hate speech not only from his pastor, his associates like Al Sharpton, and even bloggers at his official campaign Web site, there are very credible allegations that he misused the tax exempt resources of the United Church of Christ to promote his candidacy: a malicious and self-serving action that may put his own church’s tax-exempt status in jeopardy. The story centers on "Obama’s General Synod speech prompts IRS to investigate UCC’s tax-exempt status," which is posted at the UCC’s own Web site. [http://www.ucc.org/news/obama-speech-in-2007-prompts-1.html] The Internal Revenue Service has notified the United...

Why Kerviel is so unsettling By Christopher Caldwell Published: February 8 2008 18:27 | Last updated: February 8 2008 18:27 “You lose a sense of the amounts when you’re doing this kind of job,” the rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel told Agence France-Presse this week. “Everything gets dematerialised. You can get carried away.” It is possible Mr Kerviel was just using the interview to set up his legal defence. French authorities have accused him, after all, of forgery and breach of trust. Mr Kerviel had risen from the back office at Société Générale to become a “warrant arbitragist”. His job was...

VATICAN, October 5, 2007 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - By denying the existence of natural law, secularism is undermining the very foundations of democratic society, Pope Benedict XVI argued in an October 5 private audience with members of the International Theological Commission. Disregard for natural law, the Holy Father said, has caused "a crisis for human-- even more for Christian-- civilization." In response to that crisis, he continued, Church leaders should mobilize "both lay people and followers of religions other than Christianity" to reclaim a common moral tradition. The International Theological Commission had gathered in Rome this week to discuss a forthcoming document...

Bishops Denounce Influence of International Abortion Lobby in Nicaragua Warn that they will take to the streets to Prevent Legalization of Abortion By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman NICARAGUA, September 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) -The Catholic bishop's conference of Nicaragua denounced attempts by foreign organizations to promote "therapeutic abortion" in the country on Sunday, and warned that they would take to the streets to protest if it was necessary to prevent the practice from being legalized, something that they have done in the past. "We know that there are international entities who are interested in legalizing therapeutic abortion in Nicaragua," said Abelardo Mata,...

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 3, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney, Australia, delivered at the conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life and held in the Vatican last Friday and Saturday. The theme of the conference was "The Christian Conscience in Support of the Right to Life." * * * The moral conscience in ethics and the contemporary crisis of authority 1. The voice of conscience 1.1 What conscience is not It might scandalize you to hear that I keep a lady in my car to instruct me on which way to go in...

Background There is a heated debate about whether health professionals may refuse to provide treatments to which they object on moral grounds. It is important to understand how physicians think about their ethical rights and obligations when such conflicts emerge in clinical practice. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey of a stratified, random sample of 2000 practicing U.S. physicians from all specialties by mail. The primary criterion variables were physicians' judgments about their ethical rights and obligations when patients request a legal medical procedure to which the physician objects for religious or moral reasons. These procedures included administering terminal sedation...

The Art of Forming the Conscience of a Child by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. From THE TRUTH CRUSADE SERIES ALBUM, VOLUME ii, Eternal Life The single most important element in training children is to form their consciences. How can this be done effectively? To form a child's conscience is an art. This subject is immense. We will touch on four areas. 1. The meaning of art, 2. The meaning of conscience, 3. The forming of the conscience of a child, and 4. And most practically; rules and norms for forming the conscience of a human being from infancy on...

"Kenya charges men over anti-Muslim pamphlets" (AFP, October 20, 2006) Nairobi, Kenya - A Kenyan court on Thursday charged four Christian missionaries, including two from the United States, with incitement for distributing anti-Muslim pamphlets outside the capital, officials said. The four, identified as US nationals Andrew Saucier and Paul Garcia and Kenyans Michael Mullei and Patrick Mutinda, pleaded not guilty to the charges in a Nairobi court, they said. Kibera district magistrate Hellen Wasilwa released them on cash bail of KES20 000 (about R2 000) each and set trial for October 23 in a case that has sparked outrage among...

As I sat in the hearing room, I felt a cold chill – like the chilling effect this court-martial will have on our free speech. For this analogy to be accurate, however, I would need to be sitting in a freezer. At issue in the court-martial of Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, chaplain for the United States Navy, is a name and the freedom to speak it. That name is Jesus. And, according to this week's ruling, the freedom to speak it depends on the context. Before I could go through the metal detectors to get to the courtroom, a Navy...

It's an important question. If you listen to the offical position of the DNC it is that anyone who votes Republican is either evil or stupid. This could be why the Democrats have lost the last two Presidential polls and every Congressional election since 1992. But put them on the spot, when actual votes are at stake, and they rapidly back away from the official position. We all remember the Florida débacle of 2000, when Al Gore declared that anyone too stupid to vote in a clear and discernable way, probably meant to vote for him. Could be true, but...

NEW YORK, APRIL 11, 2006 (Zenit.org).- A recent "statement of principles" by 55 Catholic Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives has rekindled the debate over the responsibilities of Catholic politicians. The signatories of the letter stated that "we seek the Church's guidance and assistance but believe also in the primacy of conscience." But, according to Jesuit Father Joseph Koterski, professor of philosophy at Fordham University, the Catholic understanding of conscience requires a distinction. The crucial factor is not fidelity to one's chosen moral principles, but rather fidelity to moral principles given to us by God. Father Koterski explained to...

The Bush administration has decried the threatened execution of a Christian convert from Islam in Afghanistan as a violation of universal democratic principles. While we should applaud the administration's expressions of outrage, we must lament the inaccuracy of the reason cited for it. The principle of democracy is majority rule. Does anyone deny that the overwhelming majority of Afghanistan's population is Muslim? It is also likely that a majority of the Afghan population supports the decision to bring charges against the Christian convert, and even to put him to death when he is found guilty as charged of abandoning Islam....

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) announced today that legal action is underway in defense of two pharmacists who were fired for refusing to hand out abortifacient drugs. “These Conscience Clause cases are significant and represent the cutting edge of the abortion debate in our country right now;” ACLJ said in a statement to the press. “Doctors, nurses and pharmacists should not be compelled to violate their conscience and participate in an abortion procedure. We have already had success in a number of cases around the country, and we are confident that we will succeed in Illinois as...

An abortion can cause five years of mental anguish, anxiety, guilt and even shame, a BMC Medicine study suggests. University of Oslo researchers compared 40 women who had had a miscarriage with 80 who chose to have an abortion. Miscarriage was associated with more mental distress in the six months after the loss of a baby - but abortion had a much longer lasting negative effect. Pro-choice campaigners said there was no evidence abortion directly caused psychological trauma. The researchers said their work underlined the importance of giving women information about the psychological effects of losing a baby - either...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin's governor vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed health care workers to opt out of a half-dozen procedures, including withdrawing a person's feeding tube and using embryonic stem cells, on religious or moral grounds. The "conscience clause" also would have protected medical workers against punishment from their bosses or state regulators if they refused to refer people elsewhere to get the procedures. "Because it puts a doctor's political views ahead of the best interests of patients, this legislation ought to be called the 'unconscionable clause,'" Gov. Jim Doyle said in a statement. "It is...