Lucy,

I dismissed Yunus as a red herring because your bringing him up wasn’t pertinent to any points I had raised in this thread.

Based on what you’ve said about him, I would agree with you that Mother Teresa would have been glad to know of him.

Also, to clarify: Mother Teresa never set out to alleviate poverty in the world.

She set out to love and to serve, out of faithful obedience to Jesus Christ’s commandments to do so. And as I said in an earlier comment, to fail to understand this is to fail to understand her life entirely.

In so doing, Mother Teresa exemplified the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that “[man] cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes, #24).

You’ve raised quite a few points in your last few comments, and unfortunately I don’t have the time to address them now, and with this coming week being occupied with the Face the Truth Tour, I probably won’t be able to respond with anything substantive until the following week.

To Paraphrase Thomas Paine, I don’t think that is a God you are worshipping.

I don’t really care about the Catholic Churches position on anything to be honest. For all I care you can regal the masses with stories regarding how the Catholic Church sainted Galileo for his demonstration of intellectual curiosity.

My beef is with the idea that you guys are not content to keep things in the confines of the Catholic Church. I know that its bigger than the Catholic Church these days, however, for those of us who don’t believe what you believe there is a problem when it invades our home.

How can I possilby believe that life is a gift from God if I don’t believe in your God?

There is nothing arbitrary separating people from placing an infant in the garbage. Once again, who do you think is responsible for your life.

Do you understand to those of us who believe in self determination. Those of us who do not subscribe to the Religions of the world as it were. Those of us who do not subscribe to Socialism, or Communism, or Welfarism. Overall, the idea is not that the world is crawling with people just waiting to pull one over. There is no jungle of crime being held back by your God.

We determine how we will use our bodies, our minds. How hard we will work. What goals we will pursue. If we will follow a religion…which in most cases tends to get rid of that whole self determinism thing.

Criminals aren’t self determing. They are others determining. Get robbed at gunpoint and figure out whose life is being determined by their actions.

Perhaps I am not clear regarding what you are calling natural order.

Lucy,

Says who?

I understand that there are those who believe that everyone else in the world is responsible for them. That ‘God’ has ordered that we all count ourselves enslaved to one another. Can you say early Communism? That children are to be counted as servants in the system. That we have no obligation to them but to hatch and indoctrinate. The current public school system is a perfect example of that. If they can make it great, if not oh well.

I however, hold myself to a bit of a higher moral code. I do not believe that anyone else should be responsible for me. All I ask in return is that noone force me to be responsible for them. If I choose to voluntarily take responsibility for someone such as a child this is different.

The difference is the choice.

Muhammed Yunus went out armed with the understanding that people were generally good and capable. He went out to learn why people were suffering. He set out to change it. He did. He started with a quarter.

I’m highly amused by the whole panic that seems to have arised from the donation of funds from Buffett to Gates. The left is cheering maddly, you guys are panic stricken and those of us that get what is going on are grimacing over the second loudest flush in history. The first having been provided by Carnegie of course. I’m appalled, where does Gates get off not knowing better. Certainly he knows what happens to money when you put in the hands of people who don’t know what it is. Put as much money as possible in the hands of the fool and it makes no difference. Put a quarter in the hands of a woman who makes chairs out of bamboo, and it will change a life forever. As Ayn Rand said, Nobody has faith in money like those that are socially minded.

Yunus wanted to sleep at night. That’s all. He couldn’t. The thing is it was probably less to do with guilt than it was intrigue. It’s hard to say though. Find a puzzle and you must put it together. The program Yunus started has improved lives globally. Others have come to him to learn how to start similar programs. It’s changing the world. Even in our own backyard.

If Mother Theresa is half the woman that you think her to have been she would not have dismissed Yunus as a ‘red herring.’ If she was truly out to eleviate poverty in the world she would have been glad to know of Yunus. People who called two walls a house before Yunus are building nice houses to protect themselves from the elements now. They are happy to be alive. They have plans for their futures…they have hope.

I don’t know how much Jesus is worth to a man who is starving. I know that Yunus taught men to fish if you will. I know that the people that Yunus helped first are now helping others. I don’t think that Yunus taught them much about Jesus, but they are now interested in education. Which means they’ll become literate if they weren’t before. If you want to send them Bibles so that they can see what they think about the idea I’m sure that is fine.

The thing is, I have really little reason to believe anything other than that Mother Theresa would have been happy to know of Yunus. The Grameen Bank seems to be this well kept secret. There’s no fanfair, its just people taking out loans, working, earning a living and paying back the loan slowly but surely, in the end their life is better than it was previously. Yunus wasn’t following orders by anyone. In fact, pretty much anybody who is anyone in the whose who of world affairs has tried to stop him at some point. They keep telling him that the poor can’t be given loans. The poor can’t run a business. He keeps asking the same thing. Then why is it being done? Why is it being done with success? They try to interfere and turned it into another failed mission of altruism. Fortunately, Yunus is to tough, and he has a belief that human beings are good and capable.

Yes, if the success of the Grameen Bank, and other variations of what is essentially grassroots versions of Capitalism persist. If people begin to have the same faith in themselves as Yunus had in them across the globe, it is true, there will be no further need for Mother Theresas. Not if she was attempting to alleviate poverty.

If the point of Mother Theresas life was to spread religion, then you’re right, I don’t get it. You say that I don’t consider the aids patients, but there is no cure for aids. Current policy is causing the spread to worsen.

When she came in, she was sooooo tiny. I swear she was like 4′ something, but commanded a huge presence. They had the microphone on the lowest setting, and when she crept up on the altar, they had to scramble around for an extra milk carton for her to stand on. I mostly remember her speaking about our need to minister to the “poorest of the poor”.

Pansy,

Indeed. For some time, Mother Teresa has had a special place in my heart, likely stemming from my great fortune at being part of the crowd at a papal audience at Castel Gandolfo with John Paul II, of happy memory, two days after she died, and at which he paid tribute to his dear diminutive friend.

We named our first daughter after her. It’s especially fitting that we did so, since Teresa was born on January 21, 2003 (January 21 is the feast of St. Agnes; and Agnes was Mother Teresa’s baptismal name), and 2003 was the year she was beatified.

Thanks John. Mother Theresa was a living saint. If you reduce her great deeds, then there is not a person in history who performed great deeds (except for the One who claimed to be God, and His Mother…and maybe His stepdad….)

MLK had some major character flaws-he was an adulterer. He was no saint (literally). But his public life, and his vocation so-to-speak was the Civil Rights Movement and to promote integration. This was a very noble cause. While MLK should not be regarded as a saint, that does not change the fact his cause was a good one.

Rosa Parks was no heroine. The woman was just tired and wanted to sit her behind down. However, the dialogue that started as a result was much needed despite who Rosa Parks was.

Margaret Sanger’s cause was the extermination of the poor, of blacks and whomever else she saw unfit through birth control. Her propaganda, such as explanations like the one you just gave, that people were too stupid to equate sex with babies nine months later, is why the black community was able to embrace her nonsense, and now today 80% of black children are born without fathers, white woman have 184 abortions for every 1000 live births compared to black women who have 534 abortions for every 1000 live births.

The fruits of the Civil Rights Movement have been positive. The fruits of Margaret Sanger’s movement have been death and destruction to the black community. I cannot look around the black community and point to one thing that was Margaret Sanger’s legacy, and say “that was a good thing”.

Lucy,

I’m probably not the best person to answer that question.

Why don’ t you ask some of the refugees, ex-prostitutes, mentally ill, sick children, abandoned children, AIDS victims, and aged — to name a few — that are cared for by the 4,500 Missionaries of Charity sisters (the religious order she founded) in 133 countries?

Your point about Muhammed Yunus is a red herring, especially since it’s premised on the unfounded view that there isn’t really much to show for Mother Teresa’s efforts.

More importantly, however, you’re still missing the point about Mother Teresa’s life. She lived a life of service to others, but her actions were a means to an end. Or, rather, an End — Jesus Christ.

Her corporal works of mercy were done out of love for Him, and out of obedience to his command to love and serve one another.

To fail to grasp this is to fail to understand Mother Teresa’s life entirely.

By the way, do you stand by your comment, “…the future will more than likely know no need for Mother Theresas”?

Lucy,

Says who?

What you’re saying here only makes sense in the context of a natural order.

In comment #12, you said, “An individuals usefulness is in their terms and to themselves.” You immediately proceeded to make an exception when you said:

Of course there are special circumstances when one must extend their efforts to promote the well being of a child that they have chosen and were able to choose to have. Overall however, the usefulness, or uselessness of an individual is at their discretion as they will be the victim or benefactor of their exploitation of thier mind and body.

If I, as an individual, am responsible for determining the “usefulness” of my own life, you’re saying that an arbitrary exception is the only thing preventing me from abandoning my newborn child on a garbage heap?

Lucy,

Would that I only made mistakes “every once in a while”. For that matter, would that all Catholics only made mistakes “every once in a while”.

Like all human beings, we Catholics make mistakes a lot. Mistakes in matters of morality we call sins; for this reason, Holy Mother Church encourages us to go to confession — and frequently, at that.

That the Church is composed of imperfect sinners is in no way contradicted by the fact that the Church’s Magisterium, or teaching authority (the pope and the bishops in communion with him) is preserved from error by the Holy Spirit when speaking on matters of faith or morals.

The question you’re asking is, essentially, this: Is it possible that the Catholic Church has been wrong for 2,000 years for teaching that the intentional killing of an innocent human person is wrong?

The answer is no.

It’s also worth noting that the Church has no authority to change her teaching on abortion.

For two, perhaps it was to save his neck. You can’t actually believe…secular acedemics…who used the church…right, the poor, poor Catholic Church. Whatever was I thinking.”

Lucy,

Again, let me see if I understand where you’re coming from here.

Nearly half a millennium after his death, and without a shred of documentation, you’re attempting to hypothesize as to why Galileo remained a devout Catholic until the end of his life.

I think I’ll stick to the historical evidence on this one.

Lucy,

Recall that I have twice previously invited you to read the article I linked to and to vet it for historical accuracy. If there is evidence that contradicts anything contained therein, do tell.

Until such time as you produce contradictory evidence, I repeat my earlier claim that your view of Galileo’s run-in with the Inquisition is based on a caricature of a series of historical events and not the actual events themselves.

Your steadfast refusal to even consider an alternative historical analysis of said events is not a little close-minded.

Interestingly, your close-mindedness on this matter calls to mind a fine irony noted in the article to which I linked:

One frequent embellishment to the story is the claim that certain clergy refused to look through Galileo’s telescope, because they thought it bewitched. Actually these were not churchmen at all but two of Galileo’s scientific rivals, the scholastic natural philosophers Cesare Cremonini and Guilio Libri, who embraced the then popular view that telescopic observations were a superfluous amendment to the complete adequacy — or so they thought — of Aristotle’s physical system. Ironically, the two priests who did look through Galileo’s telescope, Frs. Clavius and Grienberger, were converted by the experience to Galileo’s Copernican position, but this is only mentioned in scholarly histories.

Which part of that will not promote hatred of gay people?”

Exactly none of it promotes hatred of gay people. Quite the contrary, in fact.

For purposes of clarity, I just want to make sure that I understand what you’re saying.

You believe that everything in the three paragraphs I cited from the Catechism of the Catholic Church constitutes “the promotion of hatred towards gay people.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this means that you:

- believe that when the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual persons “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” she is promoting hatred toward them?

- believe that when the Catholic Church teaches that “[e]very sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided,” she is promoting hatred toward homosexual persons?

- believe that when the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual persons “are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition,” she is promoting hatred toward them?

- believe that when the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual persons “can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection,” she is promoting hatred toward them?