Catholic Herald beatification live blog

If, like me, you are busy doing other things this morning and cannot watch the coverage of the beatification of Pope John Paul II live on the internet, you can catch up from time to time on the Catholic Herald's Live Blog.

I'd probably excuse you even looking at your smartphone during the sermon provided you know how to turn all sound notifications off, and provided you are able to multi-task so that you can drink in my words of wisdom. OK: maybe the second proviso isn't so important.

The heavy cross of infertility

Jennifer Fulwiler writes for the National Catholic Register (for people in the UK, that's the good one.) Earlier this week, she had a good piece On Being Catholic and Infertile | Blogs | NCRegister.com. I think this article might be encouraging and supportive for Catholic couples who would love to have children but struggle with the heavy cross of infertility.

We should also remember in our prayers those who have had some children but can have no more because of a bad miscarriage or some damage in a previous pregnancy. Jennifer speaks of the temptation to envy when couples are rejoicing in the birth of a new child. There is also something rather bitter in observing a couple who were contracepting and did not want a child, worrying about a "problem pregnancy."

Among those that I know, I have seen two very positive responses to infertility. One is to adopt children: this can be a gruelling process in politically correct England. Another is for husband and wife to support each other in various apostolates that are possible because of the freedom from parental responsibility that is accepted in the spirit of sacrifice.

I do take the point that infertile couples sometimes experience a lack of support at parish and diocesan levels. Those of us who preach about and promote the apostolate of the family do need to bear in mind the suffering of those who cannot have children. We also need to publicise the excellent work of NaPro and other agencies who work to help couples using natural methods of maximising fertility. I am glad for the opportunity to mention this again here: London Centre for NaPro Technology. If you have any other helpful links, please put them in the combox. (Preferably using these instructions.)

Fight for Your Right Revisited (2011) Hollywood Movie Watch Online

Fight for Your Right Revisited (2011) Hollywood Movie Watch Online:

Director: Adam Yauch Genres: Short, Comedy, Music Writer: Adam Yauch
Stars: Elijah Wood, Danny McBride and Seth Rogen, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Rashida Jones, Will Arnett, Adam Scott, Mike Mills, Rainn Wilson, Arabella Field, Ted Danson, Roman

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Hong Kong Passes Legislation Of Minimum Wage For Low-paid Workers

Hong Kong Campaign for minimum wage for workers

By ONE Liners Agency

HONK KONG NEWS – For the first time, the low-paid workers in Hong Kong will be paid a minimum wage to sustain their life in a better way. It is expected to assistance about 270,000 workers or in a way 10%x of the working population. Low-paid workers will be given a wage on hourly basis, earning a minimum of HK$28 ($3.60; £2.18).

Honk Kong’s territory wealth gap is quite thick and in the recent times public pressure was mounting on the government to narrow the gap between poor and rich. Although, the minimum wage scheme is strongly criticized by the business community, saying it would be too expensive. They say the scheme would force businessmen to cut staff. Critics also say the legislation is give away from the country’s free-market roots.

It is reported that except Singapore most Asian countries have the scheme of minimum wage for their workers.

The minimum wage scheme is expected to give a moral boosting to country’s “low-class” dwellers such as street sweepers, security guards and restaurant workers.

"The employers now cannot squeeze the lowest paid sectors of society," said Lee Cheuk-yan, head of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions and a legislator.

In the recent times there were much furor about a minimum wage and Hong Kong labor union had campaign for it. Some of them are still not happy with the legislation, saying the cost of living is much higher than the minimum wage.

The legislation is only for native Honk Kong workers and does not cover the 300,000 domestic helpers who come from neighboring nations Philippines and Indonesia.

Video President Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner

For Now, The Honeymoon Will Have to Wait

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Britain's Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, walk together in Buckingham Palace, following their wedding on Friday, in central London April 30, 2011 Reuters Pictures

Kate's Flowers are Placed at Grave of the Unknown Warrior

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 30: The wedding bouquet of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge lies on the grave of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey on April 30, 2011 in London, England. The day after the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge the couple are expected to leave for a secret honeymoon location. Getty Images

Why not sell chocolate instead?

A pharmacist points out the inconsistency of promoting healthy living in every area of life except sexual behaviour.

RoseMary Baker, a pharmacist from Wirral, Merseyside, has written a good piece for PJ Online, the internet version of the Pharmaceutical Journal, a publication of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. She points out that pharmacists do not sell chocolate or tobacco, they try to encourage their customers to adopt a healthy lifestyle, and warn about the consequences of smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise. Then she says:

But what about sex? Well now, that is different. Oh yes, we do display leaflets on how to have safe sex or where to go if you need an abortion. In Wales we can provide post-coital contraceptives free of charge without the necessity of obtaining a prescription from a doctor. Are we being as fair to the public about sex as we are about smoking or eating sweets or drinking alcohol? Do we highlight the failure rate of contraceptives or do we couch the true failure rate in terms like “if used effectively”. Do we shout from the rooftops the fact that many progesterone only pills are likely to fail if the dose is more than three hours late? Have we fought for a Government health warning on condoms which says “this product is likely to fail if you have never used a condom before and you are fumbling around in the dark at the back of the youth club”? Do we help to punch home the truth that sexually transmitted infections really are transmitted sexually, are highly unpleasant and often lead to infertility later in life?

Excuse a light-hearted anecdote, but this does remind me of a debate in the Junior Common Room at Corpus Christi College, Oxford back in 1977 or 1978. The motion before the House was "That a machine should be installed in the Plummer for the purveyance of contraceptives." (The "Plummer" was the public washroom area.) Finals student Paul Haffner (now a priest and an established theologian in Rome) supported by myself, a number of other Catholics, and some good Anglicans, stood up to propose the amendment: "That the word 'contraceptives' should be replaced by the word 'chocolate'." Sadly we lost but the wit was appreciated by our opponents.

Actually, I discovered a few years ago that chocolate is better at suppressing a tickly cough than most patent cough medicines so there is in fact a good reason for pharmacists to stock this relatively harmless item in place of cough mixture, never mind hormonal abortifacients.

On that matter (and indeed getting back to the point) in her article, RoseMary Baker also asks the pertinent question,

Why are we as a profession going along with the lie that postcoital contraception is not abortifacient?

She concludes the article:

The teenage pregnancy statistics for the UK are terrifying. What are we as a profession doing about it? We just find ways of making the morning after pill ever more widely available instead of spreading the word that sex, far more than chocolate and alcohol, needs to be treated with restraint and respect.

See the full article: More sex please! We’re pharmacists

H/T Caritas in Veritate

A Lovely Photo

In this photo provided by Clarence House on Saturday, April 30, 2011, Britain's Prince William, center left, and his wife Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, center right, pose for a photograph with, clockwise from bottom right, Margarita Armstrong-Jones, Eliza Lopes, Grace van Cutsem, Lady Louise Windsor, Tom Pettifer, and William Lowther-Pinkerton in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace, following their wedding at Westminster Abbey, London, on Friday, April 29, 2011. AP Photo

Resurrection - some enthusiastic Bible-bashing

During the Easter season it is good to see an enthusiastic presentation of the resurrection - both in video form and in thoughtful comments on the Gospel texts.

I found the above video by Rob Bell on the blog of the Archdiocese of Washington where Mgr Charles Pope regularly writes a lot of sense. Over the past few days he has been looking at the accounts of the resurrection in the Gospels. Many students of scripture will be familiar with the kind of exegesis that leaves you really no choice but to suppose that the "resurrection stories" are all rather confused, that the whole thing is probably a myth, and that it is more "grown-up" to imagine that the apostles were really sitting around like people at a funeral reception saying "it's as if old Bob were still with us."

Mgr Pope looks at the scriptural accounts in two excellent posts in which he offers a reconciliation of the accounts. I'm not a scripture scholar and I expect that some might want to disagree with some of Mgr Pope's suggestions, but it is good to see a different kind of approach to the scriptures, proceeding from a hermeneutic of faith, rather than suspicion.

Making Sense of the Resurrection Accounts – Are there Discrepancies?
A Chronological Sequence of the Resurrection Events