2009 April archive at Being Frank

Archive for April, 2009

Apr

Is a facebook friend a real friend?

By Filia Day 3 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I sometimes wonder about the actual real uses of facebook and other social media. I mean I’ve been guilty of procrastinating on it from time to time (taking those stupid quizzes and seeing what people have been up to lately). I’m sure I’m not alone either, in fact I know I’m not because I have had conversations confirming it. I went for a drink with a few friends recently and somehow facebook came up in conversation. One of my friends mentioned how he had a rather disturbing moment with an acquaintance of his who was a friend on his on facebook. They meet randomly in the street and begun discussing what they had been up to over the last few weeks. Quickly, my friend discovered that he knew what said acquaintance had been up to because he had seen pictures on facebook. Regardless, he played along pretending that it was the first time he had heard about what she had been up to. Not surprisingly he felt deeply unsatisfied by the lack of authenticity of the whole affair.

No doubt social media is beneficial. I’ve caught up with old school friends and kept in contact with friends who aren’t located in Auckland, for instance. But what happens when social networking goes too far? When people spend a good few hours a day on it or perhaps the time one spends on facebook replaces normal (personal) social interaction? That’s got to be detrimental to the normal development of the human person right? There’s something about personal presence that you just can’t substitute.

I admire those who gave facebook up for lent though, that is truly heroic!

Apr

World Youth Day meets Africa…

By Tuppence 30 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Last weekend I spent 48 hours at the West African equivalent of World Youth Day. 30,000 young Catholics from Senegal, Cape Verde, Guinée-Bissau and Mauritania gathered in Thiès, about three hours from Dakar for a celebration modelled on the international WYD format.

I knew from the outset that it would not be a leisurely weekend…but my goal was purely to experience the JMJ (les journées mondiales de la jeunesse) in this part of the world. Much was similar to my previous WYD experiences…we slept on classroom floors, communal showers (though the sanitation standards were nothing better than a poorly-run refugee camp to be honest), long food queues, oppressing heat, endless chanting and singing at all hours…all good ingredients for a hardy pilgrimage…

That said, I did have to marvel on Sunday morning as I looked across the beat-up stadium in Thiès, a city of probably 300,000, as the thousands of young West African Catholics continued to pour in for the final Mass. While the exceptional lack of punctuality (Mass that starts 2 1/2 hours late, and takes 3 1/2 hours is not good in temperatures of 35 degrees plus…) and the prevalence of dehydration and fainting pose a logistical challenge to any further events of this nature…just the mere fact that in a country that is only constitutionally short of being an Islamique state, where the Christian population (read pretty much all Catholic) is about 10%…that such a huge number of young animated faithful could be found is a testament to the state of the Church on this continent.

The bishop for Catechesis, from the diocese of Saint Louis, had the young people thoroughly engaged as he challenged them to dive into the virtue of Hope…not vague hope, not optimistic hope, but authentic, eternal hope based on the fact of Christ’s death and resurrection…in the face of very real and very pressing challenges unique to this continent.

A young Senegalese women gave testament to the crowd of 30,000, challenging her peers again to take up their role in the Body of Christ on this continent, to fight against all forms of poverty, injustice, lack of respect for life…to not flee from the reality of life here, but to be the salt of the African earth and the light of the African ‘world’.

As with any message like that, the seeds will have fallen on many places – fertile soil, thorn bushes and dry cracked land. Of course there will be some who go home all excited and then lack the necessary nourishment or will to continue seeking Christ earnestly, but many, I believe, would have been rejuvenated in their ardour for Christ. With the grace of God, such regional World Youth Days – much less of a financial burden on participants (all up it cost me $40 to participate), much more localised and much less commercial – could provide an important middle-ground to the large international WYDs with all the associated logistical, infrastructural and financial implications.

Apr

Better than I could have said it

By James the Least 32 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

A friend of mine sent through a couple of emails from His Eminence, George Cardinal Pell of the Archdiocese of Sydney regarding condoms and Africa. Now, I know this topic has been seemingly done to death in the media in recent times, but since people are still dying in Africa, I don’t see any reason to let this issue drop from our radars, do you?

So, the good Cardinal uses the internets on a regular basis to communicate his addresses and statements, as well as his regular column in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. Sort of like a blog for non-internet people that’s then re-broadcast on the internet. Anyway, his statement “Science Supports Human Dimension in Condom Debate” and his column “Do Condoms Help?” should be mandatory reading by all members of the debate on the “solutions” to the problem of millions of people dying every year from this terrible disease.

Go take a read. It’s okay – I’ll wait.

…

Finished? Good stuff eh? I particularly like this quote:

To blame Catholic teaching for the spread of HIV/AIDS requires proof that those following the first essential Christian requirement of living chastely within and before marriage are still dying of AIDS. Pigs will fly before that argument does.

And there it is! In two sentences he’s succinctly stated what I have always believed – no one on the planet should be allowed to argue that condoms are the solution to HIV/AIDS in Africa, or anywhere else. Why? Because they’re not 100% effective. I don’t care if they’re 99.9999% effective (which they’re not). They’re not 100%, therefore, they’re not a solution. Abstinence, by definition, is though. It’s much harder and requires different educational approaches, but it is a solution. Now, if we don’t like that one, are there other solutions out there? 100% effective solutions?

Seriously – are there any? Because if there aren’t, why aren’t we united behind making the one solution we do have workable?

Apr

Morning after pill via text message now?

By eyeWitness 21 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

New Zealand has recently allowed the morning after pill to be supplied to girls directly by pharmacists without the need for a doctor’s consultation. Going even further, pupils at a Catholic school in Britain may now be given access to the morning-after pill via text messages. St Gregory the Great in Oxford is one of six schools being considered for a pilot programme whereby girls could send a text message to a nurse in order to gain access to “emergency contraception”.

The morning-after pill is often described as “emergency contraception”, but the Catholic Church defines it as an abortifacient.

The different terminology is based on competing definitions of pregnancy. Those who maintain the pill is a form of contraception define pregnancy as beginning when the blastocyst has fully attached itself to the endometrium. But the Church defines pregnancy as beginning at conception, when a spermatozoon fertilises an ovum. The morning-after pill prevents the implantation of the blastocyst in the wall of the uterus.

While I don’t think the school has actually agreed to anything or even approved of the scheme, the fact that this is even a possibility seems to be yet another example of Catholic organizations and schools not really living up to Catholic ideals and providing poor examples of what Catholicism stands for in their communities. No wonder the majority of students seem to come out of Catholic schools with little respect for the Church, or even knowledge of its teachings. I know I certainly didn’t.

Parents will also not be informed of any request from the students of schools participating in the scheme. However ‘child protection’ staff will be called if students younger than 13 request the pill.

Whoever decided that the state suddenly gets to decide how we raise our children, hand out contraception to them, and intervene with ‘child protection’ staff?

All this only reinforces the message that it is normal and inevitable to be sleeping with people in your teens and have multiple sexual relationships – and to the point that children are entitled and even encouraged to keep things from their parents in the case of opposition half the time.

Natural Family Planning clinics also supply condoms and contraception to children in New Zealand free and in bulk so they are ‘safe’ from pregnancy, like it is some monster that might come and catch them unawares without any action on their part – or they are slaves to their own bodies and incapable of self-restraint.

We constantly worry about single parents, divorce, abortion, breakdown in families, depression in girls who have experienced complex and emotionally scarring relationships, crime – yet we encourage children in all the wrong directions.

Apr

The Root of All Sin

By On the Road 108 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

How often am I consumed with myself and my concerns? How many times do I find myself indifferent to the needs of those around me? How often do I find myself distracted during Mass, thinking of things far from God? How often am I planning for myself – my day, my money, my future, my possessions, my life. More often than not I surprise myself when I stop to consider the true answers to these questions.

Humility is something I struggle with, something that everyone struggles with in one way or another, but something that often escapes me. My professional ambition, my Catholic triumphalism, my reliance on myself – all areas of humbleness I struggle with. Through that struggle, God keeps drawing me back to Him, to His strength and to His true love. Only in humility he catches my fall, gives me the grace to complete things I just do not have the strength to complete at times, including this post, and gives me glimpses of His plan for my life. My pride inflates enough to keep me afloat, for a time. It allows me to live in my cocoon – not needing to be worried about those outside my immediate sphere of daily life. It keeps me securely focused on….me.

How often I ignore history in my pride – ignoring the pride in Babel, and in the Garden of Eden. I forget often, saying to God, ‘My will be done.’ The ‘self-centred man evaluates everything by the effect it will have on him personally, and this hardens into the mental attitude Saint Augustine identifies as the origin of all moral deviation – self-love in contempt of God’ (In Conversation with God). In my pride, I rely on my own strength, trying to get things off the ground myself – only to utterly fail.

Pride – the root of all sin. The root which conveniently sets God aside, rendering us indifferent to Him, or even worse, in anger or hatred. Pride does not consider God, does not seek refuge in Him, does not ask for His assistance, and is not grateful. On the other hand – a humble person puts God first, always. They are constantly seeking His guidance, His refuge in good and bad times, is in perpetual prayer, and is grateful for everything given and taken away with the knowledge that nothing on earth is theirs – only God’s.

I pray that Christ destroys my pride. That I am humble, in thought and action, from the moment I arise from my bed to the time I return. I pray I am vigilant in my lookout for pride in my life. I pray I do not seek to judge, do not ‘know it all’ in my conversations, and honestly forget about myself and think of others. I pray I recognise the opportunities the Lord presents to me to be humble, and accept them with an open heart and a loving disposition.

I am truly sorry when I fail.

Apr

“Look at all the wonderful things you have, sir: King Arthur’s “Excalibur”. The only existing nude photo of Mark Twain. And that rare first draft of the constitution with the word “suckers’ in it.”

By Methuselah's Beard 6 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Amidst very little fanfare and fireworks, I turned 30 this week. It wasn’t too bad. My waistline didn’t suddenly expand and my hair didn’t start to thin. It doesn’t seem like so long ago I turned 20, and now I’m entering into a new decade. So what do I have to show for my 30 years on this planet? Well I haven’t made my mark in history or left any tangible luminous sign that screams out ‘Beardy was here’. I’ve met a lot of people, made a lot of friends, and been to a few places. And I’ve learned a few lessons too.

We were once driving on one of America’s many highways and stopped at a Burger King. Well the Burger King drive-thru anyway. It was a rare treat as up until then, I’d been forced to put up fast food with McDonalds or Roy Rogers. Anyway, going through the drive-thru, I asked for a Whopper without tomatoes. After we drove off, I discovered that I had been given a Whopper with nothing in it but meat and tomato sauce. Just this week I went into a local BK and asked for a Whopper without tomatoes. Upon receipt of said burger, I found it teeming with tomatoes. Of course both times I ate the burger. The lesson learnt: Often times in life we can ask for what we want, but end up with something unexpected. Don’t abandon the unexpected as by following through on the unexpected path, we may end up with the same result we were originally after.

While in the USA, I was involved in running retreats for boys. Every month or so we’d also go away out in the countryside and run little mini camps, and I’d have to give a little talk on some aspect of the Catholic faith. A lot of the time, I was lost as to what to say to these boys and most of my little talks were written perhaps the night before with a heavy dose of prayer mixed in. I never really wanted to know how the talks went down with the kids, and I never did ask. But at the end of my time in the States, one of the boys stood up and thanked me for something I said about the Eucharist which had really struck him and which was personally very powerful for him. If only I remembered what that pearl of wisdom was… The lesson learnt: Watch what you say or do because you never know who’s listening and what impact your words or actions have.

I spent a couple of weeks in Mexico during Holy Week back in 2001. We went out to a little town called Las Juntas Del Rio Chiquito (I think) in the state of Guerrero (I think, if any Mexicans are reading this please don’t hold it against me) to do some missionary work. It was absolutely a new experience for me. Dusty streets, shacks, dead dog outside our front door, the non-flushing toilet, having to sleep on the floor with rope around our sleeping bags as it kept out the scorpions…. But there was so much beauty too. The sunrise over the river, the clean river itself, the generosity and joy of the villager, their love for Christ. The lesson learnt: Enjoy what you have and love God, and your life will be full.

I don’t think I was a shy or awkward teenager, but who really knows with teenagers? I had my small group of friends from school and that was about it. One day at our parish, there was a notice read after Mass that a youth group was rolling into our parish to put on a weekend for young people. Sort of like a retreat I guess. Some talks, some singing, meeting other young people. Exactly the sort of things I wasn’t into. However, my mother (as most mothers are probably wont to do) insisted I went along to this weekend and practically forced me to go, and so along I reluctantly went. Well, it turned out great and it opened another path for me. And along that path, I’ve made some lifelong and dear friends. Lesson learnt: Although we may not always think so, sometimes our parents do have good ideas and it pays to hear them out.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it illustrates something else I’ve learned. I did two degrees at university, separated by one year over in the States. While I was in the USA I finally decided on a career path and so returned to university. I was required to do commercial law, which I really enjoyed, and part of the course involved attending tutorials. At one of these tutorials I spied a lovely girl, but the closest I got to her was to see what her name was on the tutorial roll (I’m still quite pleased at my ability to do so). I saw her again around university and various classes, but once university was over I thought I’d never see her again. Until of course we met at indoor netball through mutual friends, then at work. We got to know each other, and got married. The lesson(s) learnt: God has a sense of humour, and who really knows the mind of God. It’s best to have faith and let Him to do what He does best.

Of course I’ve learned a lot more over the last 30 years, the importance of family and friends, trusting in God, importance of hard work, etc. But I am running out of room and I think I could mine another few blogs from this.

Apr

Second Solution

By Filia Day 11 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Well, it’s late Wednesday night and my mind is no longer functioning after a good 12 hour day of intellectual and spiritual engagement. Why, you ask? Well I am on a course for a week and we are about half way through. Man, I just want to get back to the real world where I have control over my own timetable and my own social calendar (and I’ve got a dissertation due in a few weeks that definitely isn’t going to write itself). Funny how attached we get to independence and time. Time is often the hardest to give.

Speaking of giving, today we covered human reproduction medical assistance. Some of the methods are absolutely gruesome. Did you know for instance that there are millions of human beings frozen waiting to be implanted in some foreign women’s womb? Did you know that so these embryos don’t go to “waste” if they don’t get to be implanted in some women’s womb they could well end up being experimented upon? That completely freaks me out. MILLIONS of these poor wee things stuck on ice for an indefinite period of time.

This afternoon I was in a slightly more optimistic mood and began to think about what would happen if the world finally came to its senses are decided that this process was completely inhumane and immoral and IVF etc etc ceased to happen.

What is the moral thing to do with all those millions of eggs on ice?

1. A type of quasi-adoption – Mothers out of generosity decide that they want to save the live of one child and agree to have them implanted in their womb.

2. That we baptise all of them and then give them a proper (dignified) burial.

Are theologians thinking about this idea? As we begin to see the consequences on the family and society, I think it’s only a matter of time before we will have to do something with them.