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Every time a baby is born, there is new hope for the human race. I learned this as a high school sophomore when my baby brother was born.
What a miracle of grace! As I studied his perfectly formed hands and feet, I was filled with awe and hope. I wondered who he would grow up to be.
I hoped that he would be bigger, stronger, more athletic, and more intelligent than I was. My sister hoped that he would grow up to be a gentleman.
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Q This may have been asked before, but I need some advice on how to manage holiday gatherings with someone who has dementia.
My mother lives with my sister. Mom has Alzheimer’s disease and my sister wants the entire family, all 25 of us, to gather at her home for Christmas.
I think it will be too hard for mom to be around all of us at the same time. My sister thinks we might not have another Christmas with mom so I don’t know how far to push.
(From a son in Sun Prairie).
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The world’s newest nation is in big trouble. After more than 20 years of civil war between the southern and northern areas of Sudan, the southern part of that country on July 9, 2011, became the independent nation of the Republic of South Sudan.
But the situation on the ground soon looked like South Sudan had not been born, but instead was still suffering intense labor pains.
The many years of war brought not only much death but also drained South Sudan of valuable resources, leaving it an extremely poor nation.
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Postmodern relativism and deconstruction have produced, at the popular level a culture dominated by the “whatever” attitude, a bland, detached indifferentism to the good and the true.
How often have you heard someone say, “that’s perhaps true for you but not for me” or “who are you to be imposing your values on me?” or in the words of the Dude in The Big Lebowski, “well, that’s just like your opinion, man.”
Is it not a commonplace today that the only moral absolute that remains is the obligation to tolerate all points of view? What this subjectivism has conduced toward is a society lacking in energy and focus, one that cannot rouse itself to corporate action on behalf of some universal good.
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The prospect of a very attractive, recently-married young woman with a terminal illness facing excruciating pain and suffering as she dies is enough to move anyone.
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A team of sociologists, led by Catholic University professor William D’Antonio, published a survey a few years ago that received quite a bit of media attention, for it showed that many Catholics disagree with core doctrines of the Church and still consider themselves “good Catholics.”
Forty percent of the respondents said that belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is not essential to being a faithful Catholic. Perhaps the most startling statistic is this: 88 percent of those surveyed said “how a person lives is more important than whether he or she is a Catholic.”
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According to Matthew Christoff, “There is a serious ‘man-crisis’ in the Catholic Church. It is widespread and serious. Unless the Church, including its bishops, priests, and lay men begin to take notice and make the evangelization of Catholic men a priority, the Catholic Church in the West will decay, as more and more men abandon the Church. Unchecked, the exodus of Catholic men from the faith is likely to continue as men become increasingly casual about Catholicism.”
Recognizing this crisis, Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “In vast areas of the earth the faith risks being extinguished, like a flame without fuel. We are facing a profound crisis of faith, a loss of a religious sense which represents one of the greatest challenges for the Church today . . . The renewal of faith must, then, be a priority for the entire Church in our time.”
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QUESTION: What does mental health have to do with our faith?
RESPONSE: By William McKenna, M.S., clinical extern at the IPS Center for Psychological Services
For years, psychology and theology were like two squabbling siblings. Always ready to fight, but actually always seeking the same end.
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Q From the past columns I have read, my situation is different. I am the 79-year-old mother of a disabled daughter.
My health is pretty good, but I realize I will not be around forever. I have taken care of “Nancy” all my life, and she and I are very close.
I have not made any plans for her and wonder where to begin. She is my only child, and the thought of any other distant relatives caring for her is out of the question.
(From a mother in Monroe)
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One of the classical demonstrations of God’s existence is the so-called argument from desire.
It can be stated in a very succinct manner as follows. Every innate or natural desire corresponds to some objective state of affairs that fulfills it.
We all have an innate or natural desire for ultimate fulfillment, ultimate joy, which nothing in this world can possibly satisfy. Therefore there must exist objectively a supernatural condition that grounds perfect fulfillment and happiness, which people generally refer to as “God.”
