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Elizabeth Bookser Barkley - Many Catholics married to persons of other Christian denominations feel left out of parish activities because they don't fit the profile of the "normal" Catholic marriage. (There is a need to) remind the whole Catholic community of the vital role interchurch couples can play in the working toward full unity of those whose common bond is Jesus Christ. That these marriages succeed is the concern of us all.

For Catholics about to set out on the journey of marriage with a person of another Christian denomination, the path ahead may seem fraught with perils: dispensations to be obtained, in-laws to placate, serious faith matters to ponder, such as the religious education of children.

But couples who have lived creatively and faithfully in such a marriage counsel that what may look like obstacles can actually lead to real growth in this exciting journey of love together.

Read the complete article here.

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Barbara Kay - When Mother's Day was invented just over 100 years ago, early and multiple motherhood was the near-universal destiny of most women. That all changed 50 years ago with the invention of "the Pill," as oral birth control soon became known.

 

In 1961, 400,000 women used it. Today 100 million women pop that little magic pellet into their mouths to start their day, confident they won't get pregnant no matter where their fancy leads them.

Contraception didn't begin with the Pill. But real sexual freedom did. Pre-Pill contraception was messy, risky, cumbersome and anti-romantic. By automating and distancing safe readiness for spontaneous sex from the act itself, women felt truly liberated from nature's implacable laws.

Read the complete article here.

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Collective Shout is a new grassroots campaigns movement mobilising and equipping individuals and groups to target corporations, advertisers, marketers and media which objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services.

 

Collective Shout exposes corporations, advertisers, marketers and media engaging in practices which are offensive and harmful especially to women and girls, but also to men and boys.

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Read the complete article here.

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Nicholas Eberstadt - Be careful what you wish for. After decades of struggling to contain the global population explosion that emerged from the healthcare revolution of the 20th century, the world confronts an unfamiliar crisis: rapidly decreasing birthrates and declining life spans that might set back the progress of human development.

It may not be the first way we think of ourselves, but almost all of us alive today happen to be children of the "world population explosion" - the momentous demographic surge that overtook the planet during the course of the 20th century. Thanks to sweeping mortality declines, human numbers nearly quadrupled in just 100 years, leaping from about 1.6 or 1.7 billion in 1900 to about 6 billion in 2000.

This unprecedented demographic expansion came to be regarded as a "population problem," and in our modern era problems demand solutions. By century's end, a worldwide administrative apparatus - comprised of Western foundations and aid agencies, multilateral institutions, and Third World "population" ministries - had been erected for the express purpose of "stabilizing" world population and was vigorously pursuing an international antinatal policy, focusing on low-income areas where fertility levels remained relatively high.

Read the complete article here

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Michael Cook - A 51-year-old Michigan man may have fathered as many as 400 children by donating sperm to an IVF clinic between 1980 and 1994. At the time Kirk Maxey saw this as a way to pay his way through medical school and to help infertile women. "You would get a personal phone call from a nurse saying, 'The situation is urgent! We have a woman ovulating this morning. Can you be here in a half hour?'," he told Newsweek last year.

Today Mr Maxey deeply regrets his experience, but little has changed since then. More and more babies are being born through sperm donation. In the US, it could be as many as 30,000 and 60,000 children each year. No one really knows. Neither the IVF clinics nor US government departments are required to report these vital statistics.

The United States alone has a fertility industry that brings in US $3.3 billion annually. "Fertility tourism" has taken off as a booming global trade. Some nations, like Cyprus, the Ukraine or India, bill themselves as destinations for couples who wish to circumvent stricter laws and greater expense in their own countries in order to become pregnant with reproductive technologies. The largest sperm bank in the world, Cryos, is in Denmark and ships three-quarters of its sperm overseas.

This disconnect between procreation and fatherhood is unprecedented in human history. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have entered the world as genetic orphans. How do they feel about it? 

Read the complete article here.

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In 2007 a group of seminarians recorded these seven amusing but informative 1-minute videos looking at the common misconceptions (excuse the pun) between NFP and contraceptives. 

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Stephanie Weinert - It's a fact of life and part of human nature to yearn for what we don't have...to believe that what someone else has is better than what's been given to us...to trust that if we get what we're pining for we'd be so much happier. Perhaps this phenomenon goes all the way back to our first parents.

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Margaret Somerville - Last week, the Quebec College of Physicians and Surgeons tentatively approved euthanasia. That means it's essential that we look, specifically, at the impact that euthanasia would have on physicians and the profession of medicine, in order to understand why this approval is a very bad idea.

In mainstream media, and therefore in the general public forum, the euthanasia debate has been focused, almost entirely, on the impact that legalising euthanasia (a term I use in this article to include physician-assisted suicide) would have at the individual level. But we must also consider the impact legalising it would have at institutional, governmental and societal levels. We need to explore not only the practical realities, such as the possibilities for abuse, that allowing euthanasia would open up, but also, the effect that doing so would have on important values and symbols that make up the intangible fabric that constitutes our society.

For example, what would be its likely impact on major societal institutions, such as medicine and law, which help to establish those values and carry the message of the need to respect them?

Read the complete article here.

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Jacqueline Rapp and Pete Vere - As a Judge and a Defender of the Bond within our respective dioceses' Catholic Marriage Tribunal, we encounter misunderstandings every day about the declaration of nullity (or annulment) process. Often, the people who come into our offices question the need for an annulment before approaching a new marriage. Their misunderstandings commonly arise from misconception as to what the Catholic Church teaches about marriage, and consequently, why the Catholic Church judges some relationships not to be marriages.  

When does a marriage come into being?

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Edward Sri - When experiencing sorrow, we might be tempted to close in on ourselves. We might allow negative emotions to gnaw at us. We might fail to be attentive to others' needs because we are so preoccupied with our troubles. We might also become sluggish in our responsibilities, not giving the best of ourselves at work and with our family.

Some people simply are not pleasant to be around when they experience sorrow. They become gloomy and grumpy, and might even let their frustrations out on others.

Human beings cannot escape suffering in this world. However, the way we face life's sorrows is a question of moral character. Do we allow sorrow to dominate our existence? Or do we bear our sorrow in a praise worthy manner, not allowing it to control us? Patience is the particular virtue we need to help us to bear sadness in such a way that we do not abandon the good course for our lives.

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