Wishing all my readers a very happy Christmas. Remember that it's a feast - enjoy it to the full!


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The precise reason Padre Pio refused absolution to a woman who had an abortion and why he eventually granted her absolution

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Throughout my adult life I've been surrounded by young female friends who tell me that they view me as a Latin Mass Catholic who takes sin and the sin of abortion in particular too seriously. They wear rictus smiles and claim it's not really so dire a sin when a woman employs a doctor to slaughter the little one inside her because she wants to prioritise her career or doesn't want a child with her current boyfriend. Or they reiterate the reason that I heard from the lips of hundreds of women when I was with them during their crisis pregnancies: that they can have a baby and provide for one, but they do not feel ready. 

In response I have often tried to defend the Church's teachings on the gravity of abortion as a mortal sin by reminding my coffee companions and colleagues that Padre Pio took the sin of abortion so deathly seriously that he was known to have refused absolution if a penitent confessed to having had an abortion.
While this has led to the smiles melting fro…
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The doctors' union admits that pro-life medics face discrimination and harassment

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The British Medical Association has given written evidence to members of Parliament that confirms pro-life doctors face pressure to take part in abortions, and discrimination if they do not comply.  There is a full and detailed report by Simon Caldwell, which I urge everyone to read. 
In the wake of the BMA's presentation of such evidence that will form part of an inquiry into the working of the conscience clause of the 1967 Abortion Act,  I am re-posting a story I wrote for The Catholic Herald which chronicled the challenges pro-life doctors who are practising Catholics have to overcome. I'd like to draw attention to one point that was made by Richard, a medic who I 'followed':  "As students we were given a lot of misinformation. We were instructed that if we didn’t want to be involved in an abortion that we ‘must’ refer a woman. The 1967 Abortion Act does not state that doctors ‘must’ refer, and neither does the General Medical Council. But we should tell a patie…
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Are you a Catholic who uses social networking sites or blogs? Then this is for you…

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Find it, underneath the text.  It’s your invitation to the Guild Meeting.

Every Catholic who blogs and/or uses the new media is very welcome to come along. One of my happiest memories, so far, of 2012, was the 18th of February, the date of our last Guild meeting, held in Blackfen.

This time round, we will be meeting mid September, will assist at a low-Mass in the side chapel of the sumptuous London Oratory and the softly-spoken Fr Rupert McHardy, (a native of Clapham and past-pupil of Ampleforth College) will give a talk. Fr Rupert is a calm, kind-hearted Oratorian, but he does not mince his words, and often makes concise, astute points that can both astonish and enlighten. I attended a talk he gave in Bavaria, during a retreat for pilgrims going to World Youth Day 2005. It was an outdoor talk, during an August afternoon, and we were bathed in golden sunshine, when Fr Rupert spoke about the beauty of ‘the Old Rite Mass’ (as it was called before the 7/7/2007 Motu Proprio), and severa…
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