United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Office of Media Relations, November 2, 2006

Bishop William S. Skylstad, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has joined religious leaders from diverse faith traditions in rejecting the use of torture because it is a violation of basic human dignity.

Bishop Skylstad signed the statement entitled “Torture is a Moral Issue.” The text follows:

“Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest ideals, hold dear. It degrades everyone involved – policymakers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation’s most cherished values. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable. Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? Let America abolish torture now – without exceptions.”

The statement can be found on the web site of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture at www.nrcat.org

LA Times, April 15, 2006

DENVER ��� Facing their best opportunity to control both branches of state government in 40 years, Colorado Democrats are coming to terms with the fact that their candidate for governor, Bill Ritter, opposes abortion.

Some activists spent the last six months searching for a candidate who supports abortion rights to challenge Ritter, a former Denver district attorney, in the Democratic primary. Denver's iconoclastic mayor, John W. Hickenlooper, bowed out after months of wavering, despite an e-mail campaign promoting him by NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. Abortion rights backers pinned their hopes on Gary Lindstrom, an obscure state legislator who last month declined to run.

That left Ritter as the default Democratic candidate. Term limits prevent Republican Gov. Bill Owens from seeking reelection, and the two Republicans vying to succeed him also oppose abortion.

By DAVID STOUT, New York Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 ��� Anti-abortion groups gained a victory in the Supreme Court today as the justices ruled, 8 to 0, that abortion clinics cannot rely on federal laws against racketeering and extortion to prevent demonstrations against abortions.

The opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer turned on two words. The justices ruled that clinics could not use the decades-old Hobbs Act, which outlaws the obstruction of commerce by "robbery or extortion," to stymie protesters.

Read Full Article

Justice is the key to life. (Proverbs 13:6) Righteousness guards the man of integrity. The world has order, meaning, and coherence because of the Almighty God. Genesis 1:26-27 gives definitive affirmation that man is made in the image and likeness of God.

Let mankind never forget that participation in the one Spirit of Christ is realized in recognition of one another, in solidarity with one another, and in relation to a comprehensive whole. We should distinguish Christian diversity in unity from a limitless plurality, from a non-committal pluralism in which atheistic ideologies are implemented. Beware of diabolical and heretical ideology that abolishes Christian unity, that is an irreconcilable opposite to the Word of God.

Wisdom 9:3 states, Rule the world in holiness and righteousness and pronounce judgment in integrity of heart and soul.

Civil Rights Leader Joins Pro-Life Democrats

Looks like the Democrats for Life are gaining momentum. That is a very good sign.

In addition to strengthening bi-partisan support for legally protecting unborn children, it is the Democrats for Life who are in the best position to get across the message that:
"The underlying causes of attacks on life have to be eliminated, especially by ensuring proper support for families and motherhood. A family policy must be the basis and driving force of all social policies. For this reason there need to be set in place social and political initiatives capable of guaranteeing conditions of true freedom of choice in matters of parenthood. It is also necessary to rethink labour, urban, residential and social service policies so as to harmonize working schedules with time available for the family, so that it becomes effectively possible to take care of children and the elderly" -John Paul II

Patients put down

September 12, 2005

DOCTORS working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leave them to die in agony as they evacuated.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

One New Orleans doctor told how she "prayed for God to have mercy on her soul" after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save...

Full story at:

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,16566858-5001022,00.html

This week's Coalition for Darfur post made me shudder at the thought of reading it 10 years later... Here's an excerpt:

Wolfowitz openly argued that the world should have intervened in Rwanda, but them makes the strikingly disingenuous argument that Rwanda was somehow "simpler"
than the current situation in Darfur.

Rwanda is only "simpler" because it is now over and hindsight allows us to see just how, where and why the world failed. But in 1994, with bodies filling the streets, Rwanda did not appear to be simple at all...

Were there feasible solutions to Rwanda? In hindsight, the answer is obviously "yes." Are there feasible solutions to Darfur? It is hard to say because right now it seems so complex, but there certainly are if the world powers can muster the will to address them.

But unfortunately, it is far more likely that ten years from now, when per

Weekly Coalition for Darfur post:

The Coalition for Darfur has two goals: to get bloggers writing about Darfur and to raise money for worthy organizations providing life-saving assistance to the people of Darfur. [CFD editorial comment: Sadly, international donations for tsunami relief are in excess but donations for Darfur and other needs are lacking. Can anyone say, power of the media?]

So far, we are not doing particularly well on either count.

Outside of Instapundit, very few of the "big blogs" seem to be paying much attention to Darfur, which is why it was nice to see Kevin Drum finally address the issue a few days ago.