From the church that brought you acceptance of contraception, priestesses, openly gay clergy and bishops, and most recently a leader who sounds like a pagan, and so much more,

The Church of England has broken with tradition dogma by calling for doctors to be allowed to let sick newborn babies die.

(snip)

The church stressed that it was not saying some lives were not worth living, but said there were “strong proportionate reasons” for “overriding the presupposition that life should be maintained”.

The bishop’s submission continued: “There may be occasions where, for a Christian, compassion will override the ‘rule’ that life should inevitably be preserved.

“Disproportionate treatment for the sake of prolonging life is an example of this.

The church said it would support the potentially fatal withdrawal of treatment only if all alternatives had been considered, “so that the possibly lethal act would only be performed with manifest reluctance.”

And there you have it. The Church of England, and by association, the entire Anglican community, including the Episcopal community in the USA has essentially said it’s okay to let a disabled baby die after birth. So now let’s watch the slippery slope erode. How about if everything is fine until the baby’s completed one year? two years? three years? At what point is it no longer okay to let the baby die? Of course, proponents of this are the folks who, were it more socially acceptable, would suggest that any disabled person should be ushered on out of this life – because their quality of life is so low. Hey, it worked for Michael Schiavo. Now that he’s done campaigning for a bunch of failed politicos, maybe he could land Canterbury a hand!

I am a fan of and a subscriber to the newsletter of John Martignoni and his lay apostolate, the Bible Christian Society. I’ve mentioned before, it’s a great name for an organization that teaches Catholic apologetics – because John strives to make all his apologetic arguments in light of Scripture. His favorite line to a protestant is, “I believe that every word in the Bible is true and God-inspired, but I disagree with your fallible interpretation of it.” His main point, of course, is that outside the Catholic Church, all that exists is personal, fallible interpretation, because outside the Church there is no authoritative interpreter of Scripture.

Anyway, a few weeks back, John opened a can of worms by attempting to question statements made by Joe Mizzi, the proprieter of justforcatholics.org (which is down as of this writing – maybe due to a bandwidth overload.) John did this in the most gracious way possible, by asking Joe to adjust some statements on his website that are outright misrepresentations, misinterpretations, and lies about Catholic teaching. He specifically went after the subject of justification; Mizzi states, and quotes certain parts of Church teaching (or even just writings of individuals not considered part of the Magisterium) that seem to state that Catholics believe that we merit salvation by our works.

The whole thing sparked something of a controversy, as Mizzi ultimately decided not to respond…but after being goaded by folks on both sides, he accepted the opportunity to go head-to-head with John Martignoni.

Well, round one of the debate has now been posted, and it’s worth reading. John quotes Trent a good deal (because Joe Mizzi cited Trent as being the source of the teaching that we are justified by our works) and makes it clear that Trent has always taught that justification is a free gift, that we can’t earn. Joe then responds (and I use the term loosely) that “faith alone” simply means that we receive our justification not because of anything we do – but that as a result of receiving that justification, we want to do good works; and that a person who believes that believing in Jesus and then doing nothing is enough to keep someone out of heaven.

Which means that Mizzi’s belief is remarkably Catholic. I hope he doesn’t take that as an insult.

Thanks to Jeff Miller over at the Curt Jester for pointing out this article and commenting on it. I ordinarily try not to publish stuff other bloggers have said much about, but this one is worth re-printing.

Bishop Morlino of the Diocese of Madison recorded a strongly-worded message to play at all churches in his diocese, regarding key life issues and how it is incumbent on the Catholic faithful to vote according to the dictates of their faith. This article highlights the comments made by priests before and after the recording was played, as well as parishioners who walked out during the playback of the recording. Fortunately, the article also mentions those supportive of the Bishop’s statement of Church teaching:

She attended two church services over the weekend – one in Lancaster and one in Fennimore – and saw no one walk out. Those who walked out at other parishes “obviously are not well-educated in natural, moral law, let alone Catholic teachings,” she said.

What more can one say? I say, if you don’t want to be Catholic, don’t be Catholic. But if you do want to be Catholic, understand that “the Cafeteria is closed!”

Here’s Jeff Miller’s comment on the article.

Headline conjures up all sorts of crazy ideas involving the shooting of turkeys, doesn’t it? Anyway, the media has mostly decided that with the impending election, B16 isn’t news anymore…it’s been a while since his “insensitive” comments, and besides, all the news surrounding that ultimately helps Republicans, so the media has buried this latest story on members of the religion of peace firing shots as they protested the coming visit to Turkey by the Holy Father. Fortunately, the world has Matt Drudge to keep us aware of this kind of information. It would definitely be a good idea to pray for Papa Ratzi as he heads to Turkey.