From the Pastor
July/27/2010
Our Knights have been busy in Guatemala, constructing table and benches for the new library (we made the foundation for the library on our trip last summer, and the locals constructed the basic structure during the year on what we thought was going to be just a basketball court). The students are proud of the progress that has taken place in their school over the past few years.
The enrollment has quadrupled in seven years, and the government is now seeking to use our Father Tom Moran Educational Center as a model for more programs to go up throughout the country. In this way, the local population will be educating more and more people locally, and they will become the
future leaders of their communities, without necessarily having to leave their country to seek opportunities for work and a decent living standard.
In the meantime, I learned that the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was capped (we flew over it on our way to Guatemala last Saturday). I sure hope it is the beginning of the end of the BP problem. Likewise, I read that the U.S. Senate was ready to confirm the newest nominee for our highest court in the land. You can be sure I’m among the many who are not happy or impressed with her credentials, as she moves closer to that exalted position on the judiciary.
Nonetheless, her ability to rise that rapidly has been quite a clever move on the part of some to alter the
high court’s centrist leaning, and to try to impose a new type of “national morality,” as it seeks to modify the ethical standards of our great nation. If you don’t think so, consider the following:
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan reportedly “considers abortion rights to be settled law” (USA Today, May 21, p. 5A). You can bet that during her confirmation process you will have heard a number of Senators echo that assertion.
Yet, America’s courts and legislatures have a proud history of changing “settled law.” We have, on various occasions, recovered our senses and recognized the equal dignity of those who were deprived of their rights and even suffered violence (which was given legal cover under a different name; this legal cover was mistakenly recognized by the Supreme Court for a while, but then such decisions were overturned). The Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856) case is the most commonly cited instance. In it, the slaveholder's right to property eclipsed and subsumed the slave's right to freedom. But our Constitution was eventually amended to correct the error, though it took a little time to undo that decision.
Decisions like Lochner v. New York (1905) show us another error: employers' right to contract eclipsed and subsumed the workers' rights to humane conditions and hours. These abuses were corrected by subsequent Supreme Court decisions like Muller v. Oregon and Bunting v. Oregon. Then the "Separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) sanctioning segregation was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education some 58 years later. Also, erroneous decisions like Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) institutionalized child labor. But this was overturned 23 years later by United States v. Darby. A new development -- a "pedagogical moment" -- occurred here in Constitutional law.
The question was whether constitutional rights applied to children, too. The answer was “yes.” Many reversals of Supreme Court cases came about when new evidence was brought forward that made it clear
that someone's rights, not previously recognized, were being violated. Thus, Justice Louis Brandeis brought forward the facts about how workers were being harmed.
We are now witnessing the same trend regarding the children in the womb. Evidence that has been around for quite some time demonstrating their humanity is finding its way into legislatures and courts. One of the most striking instances comes out of South Dakota. Federal courts have upheld South Dakota’s law requiring that abortion providers tell women that the procedure destroys a “whole, separate, unique, living human being.” This came about because of the evidence presented to the court regarding the humanity of the unborn child.
With hundreds of embryological studies, and massive evidence of the harm abortion does to women, such evidence, combined with new legal concepts, can challenge Roe vs. Wade in the same way its erroneous ancestral decisions were challenged. Interestingly enough, the very day after Roe v. Wade was decided, the front page of The New York Times said, “Supreme Court Settles Abortion.” Yet, it has remained the most unsettled issue on our national landscape.
The facts above should shape the way that senators, Supreme Court nominees, and all the rest of us speak about Roe v. Wade and the so-called “right” to choose an abortion. History should shape our language, and should strengthen our hope that the abortion policy can change again, just as radically as it did in 1973. May we pray fervently and work hard for that change!
The enrollment has quadrupled in seven years, and the government is now seeking to use our Father Tom Moran Educational Center as a model for more programs to go up throughout the country. In this way, the local population will be educating more and more people locally, and they will become the
future leaders of their communities, without necessarily having to leave their country to seek opportunities for work and a decent living standard.
In the meantime, I learned that the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was capped (we flew over it on our way to Guatemala last Saturday). I sure hope it is the beginning of the end of the BP problem. Likewise, I read that the U.S. Senate was ready to confirm the newest nominee for our highest court in the land. You can be sure I’m among the many who are not happy or impressed with her credentials, as she moves closer to that exalted position on the judiciary.
Nonetheless, her ability to rise that rapidly has been quite a clever move on the part of some to alter the
high court’s centrist leaning, and to try to impose a new type of “national morality,” as it seeks to modify the ethical standards of our great nation. If you don’t think so, consider the following:
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan reportedly “considers abortion rights to be settled law” (USA Today, May 21, p. 5A). You can bet that during her confirmation process you will have heard a number of Senators echo that assertion.
Yet, America’s courts and legislatures have a proud history of changing “settled law.” We have, on various occasions, recovered our senses and recognized the equal dignity of those who were deprived of their rights and even suffered violence (which was given legal cover under a different name; this legal cover was mistakenly recognized by the Supreme Court for a while, but then such decisions were overturned). The Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856) case is the most commonly cited instance. In it, the slaveholder's right to property eclipsed and subsumed the slave's right to freedom. But our Constitution was eventually amended to correct the error, though it took a little time to undo that decision.
Decisions like Lochner v. New York (1905) show us another error: employers' right to contract eclipsed and subsumed the workers' rights to humane conditions and hours. These abuses were corrected by subsequent Supreme Court decisions like Muller v. Oregon and Bunting v. Oregon. Then the "Separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) sanctioning segregation was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education some 58 years later. Also, erroneous decisions like Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) institutionalized child labor. But this was overturned 23 years later by United States v. Darby. A new development -- a "pedagogical moment" -- occurred here in Constitutional law.
The question was whether constitutional rights applied to children, too. The answer was “yes.” Many reversals of Supreme Court cases came about when new evidence was brought forward that made it clear
that someone's rights, not previously recognized, were being violated. Thus, Justice Louis Brandeis brought forward the facts about how workers were being harmed.
We are now witnessing the same trend regarding the children in the womb. Evidence that has been around for quite some time demonstrating their humanity is finding its way into legislatures and courts. One of the most striking instances comes out of South Dakota. Federal courts have upheld South Dakota’s law requiring that abortion providers tell women that the procedure destroys a “whole, separate, unique, living human being.” This came about because of the evidence presented to the court regarding the humanity of the unborn child.
With hundreds of embryological studies, and massive evidence of the harm abortion does to women, such evidence, combined with new legal concepts, can challenge Roe vs. Wade in the same way its erroneous ancestral decisions were challenged. Interestingly enough, the very day after Roe v. Wade was decided, the front page of The New York Times said, “Supreme Court Settles Abortion.” Yet, it has remained the most unsettled issue on our national landscape.
The facts above should shape the way that senators, Supreme Court nominees, and all the rest of us speak about Roe v. Wade and the so-called “right” to choose an abortion. History should shape our language, and should strengthen our hope that the abortion policy can change again, just as radically as it did in 1973. May we pray fervently and work hard for that change!