Shrove Tuesday

From New Advent: 

Shrovetide is the English equivalent of what is known in the greater part of Southern Europe as the "Carnival", a word which, in spite of wild suggestions to the contrary, is undoubtedly to be derived from the "taking away of flesh" (carne levare) which marked the beginning of Lent. The English term "shrovetide" (from "to shrive", or hear confessions) is sufficiently explained by a sentence in the Anglo-Saxon "Ecclesiastical Institutes" translated from Theodulphus by Abbot Aelfric about A.D. 1000: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do [in the way of penance]". In this name shrovetide the religious idea is uppermost, and the same is true of the German Fastnacht (the eve of the fast). It is intelligible enough that before a long period of deprivations human nature should allow itself some exceptional licence in the way of frolic and good cheer. No appeal to vague and often inconsistent traces of earlier pagan customs seems needed to explain the general observance of a carnival celebration. The only clear fact which does not seem to be adequately accounted for is the widespread tendency to include the preceding Thursday (called in French Jeudi gras and in German fetter Donnerstag — just as Shrove Tuesday is respectively called Mardi gras and fetter Dienstag) with the Monday and Tuesday which follow Quinquagesima. The English custom of eating pancakes was undoubtedly suggested by the need of using up the eggs and fat which were, originally at least, prohibited articles of diet during the forty days of Lent. The same prohibition is, of course, mainly responsible for the association of eggs with the Easter festival at the other end of Lent. Although the observance of Shrovetide in England never ran to the wild excesses which often marked this period of licence in southern climes, still various sports and especially games of football were common in almost all parts of the country, and in the households of the great it was customary to celebrate the evening of Shrove Tuesday by the performance of plays and masques. One form of cruel sport peculiarly prevalent at this season was the throwing at cocks, neither does it seem to have been confined to England. The festive observance of Shrovetide had become far too much a part of the life of the people to be summarily discarded at the Reformation. In Dekker's "Seven Deadly Sins of London", 1606, we read: "they presently, like prentices upon Shrove-Tuesday, take the game into their own hands and do what they list"; and we learn from contemporary writers that the day was almost everywhere kept as a holiday, while many kinds of horseplay seem to have been tolerated or winked at in the universities and public schools. 

The Church repeatedly made efforts to check the excesses of the carnival, especially in Italy. During the sixteenth century in particular a special form of the Forty Hours Prayer was instituted in many places on the Monday and Tuesday of Shrovetide, partly to draw the people away from these dangerous occasions of sin, partly to make expiation for the excesses committed. By a special constitution addressed by Benedict XIV to the archbishops and bishops of the Papal States, and headed "Super Bacchanalibus", a plenary indulgence was granted in 1747 to those who took part in the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament which was to be carried out daily for three days during the carnival season. [emphasis added]

Archbishop Dolan and Obama at odds with Mandate

Dolan: Obama says he's not anti-religious, but he's getting harder to believe

Published February 14, 2012

| Associated Press

• The top U.S. Catholic bishop vowed legislative and court challenges Tuesday to a compromise by President Barack Obama to his healthcare mandate that now exempts religiously affiliated institutions from paying directly for birth control for their workers, instead making insurance companies responsible.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he trusted Obama wasn't anti-religious and intended to make good on his pledge to work with religious groups to fine-tune the mandate. 

"I want to take him at his word," Dolan said in Rome, where he will be made a cardinal Saturday. But he stressed: "I do have to say it's getting harder and harder," to believe Obama's claim to prioritize religious freedom issues given the latest controversy.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/14/dolan-obama-says-hes-not-anti-religious-but-hes-getting-harder-to-believe/#ixzz1mTozN9EG

Hormones and Contraception

With the large distribution of contraceptives all over the world, a question has come up recently in in the scientific community: do contraceptives affect how men and women interact with each other? According to Janet Smith and the scientific research of Lionel Tiger, contraceptives have actually been shown to affect the natural interaction of men and women. How did they discover this conclusion? How everything else is tested nowadays in the medical field: monkeys.

Check out this YouTube video to learn more about this scientific discovery:

Contraceptives and the Environment

A little known fact about contraceptives is that the contraceptive pill produces numerous harmful effects upon the environment. How is this possible? Check out the article below:

CHERRY HILL, N.J. (CNS) -- Mark W. LeChevallier agrees with Dr. Lester Ruppersberger, a pro-life obstetrician and gynecologist, that natural family planning is safe, healthy and effective. But he would add one more characteristic: It's environmentally responsible.LeChevallier is director of innovation and environmental stewardship at American Water, the largest water and wastewater provider in North America. Along with his wife, he also has been a certified instructor of natural family planning for the past 25 years.

In separate talks July 26 to a national conference in Cherry Hill, LeChevallier and Ruppersberger approached the topic of natural family planning from very different directions but reached similarly positive conclusions.

[...]LeChevallier shared the podium with Roxana U. Barillas, a domestic policy adviser at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for a discussion on "Toxins, the Environment and the Child in the Womb." He spoke about the drastic effects that discarded contraceptive medicines and devices have been having on the nation's water and animals, especially fish.

In a talk with the daunting title of "Endocrine Disruptions: Chemical Contraceptives in Sewage Effluents," LeChevallier explained that like secondhand smoke, "secondhand estrogens are being released into the environment," to devastating effect on fish, panthers, alligators and other wildlife.

[...]
"the synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills can wreak havoc on the sex lives of fish," LeChevallier said, citing reduced penis size in male fish, masculinized female fish and other sex-related changes.

Because the synthetic estrogen is not absorbed well into the body, much of the drug is released into the environment through women's urine, he said. In addition, used contraceptive rings and patches are having a further polluting effect, he said.

Noting that in Europe, drug manufacturers are required to provide a bag for disposal or return of used contraceptive devices, LeChevallier recommended that the U.S. adopt the same policy. "Why do pharmaceutical companies here get a free ride?" he asked.

[...]

Barillas' presentation focused on the "distinctly Catholic approach to environmental concerns," which she said is neither "a new message for us" nor "an issue that is out there just for people who live close to the woods."

Of special concern for Catholics is the fact that "the poor and powerless are most likely to bear the burden of our environmental carelessness," she said.

"The poor, the elderly and persons with disabilities often are exposed to multiple contaminants," Barillas said, adding that children especially are at risk because they suffer "greater exposure pound for pound" and have a "diminished ability to detoxify and excrete many chemical toxins."

Unborn children also face many environmental risks, including lead, mercury, pesticides and other chemicals, she said.

Read More...

What is a healthy and eco-friendly alternative to contraceptives that respects the dignity of the sexual act?

Check out Natural Family Planning!

The Pill Kills

To continue our posts on the harmful effects of contraceptives, we move on to focus on the Pill.

Every year all across the nation people protest the pill and try to inform the populace about the harmful effects it is having on women. In reality, the pill that is used to avoid pregnancies is not only killing babies but is actually killing the women who use it. Here are some of the cases from thepillkills.com:

Why is it that Julie Hennessey, a 31-year-old Irish woman, died of a blood clot after taking the birth control pill? The pill caused her to develop deep vein thrombosis. 2
What about Ashley Lewis, a 17-year-old high school junior from St. Louis, Missouri? Ashley died after developing a blood clot in her lung, because she was wearing the birth control patch for six months. 3
Tanya Hayes, a 24-year-old Australian woman who died from a pulmonary embolism because of the combination of the birth control pill Yasmin and another drug, Accutane. 4
A 24-year-old mother of two children had been taking oral contraceptives for several years and had been doing so up to one month before having an operation. This young mother died seven days after the operation. It was determined that she had an increased risk of postoperative venous thrombosis, due to taking the oral contraceptives. 6
Zakiya Kennedy, an 18-year-old fashion student from New York who hoped to be a model, died after using the patch. 7

Not only that, but "Studies show that most women who have died from the use of the pill or other birth control products have died from blood clots, heart attacks, and pulmonary embolisms. As you can see on our side effects link, the pill also causes many other serious problems such as cancer, pelvic inflammatory disease, depression and much more." (the pill kills)

For more information on the pill and its side effects, click here.






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Contraceptives are bad for mental health, researcher finds

To expand on the issue of contraception, which is now at the forefront of the news recently, let us examine why the Catholic Church's stance on contraception is so important to understand.

First, here is further proof that birth control is even going against nature and what God intended for the marital act:

PAISLEY, Scotland, August 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Research from Scotland finding that heterosexual sex without using condoms is more likely to make people happy than "safe sex" with condoms, has stirred controversy among "sexual health" campaigners. The lead researcher wrote of the survey respondents, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health."
[...]

Brody wrote, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health." His findings suggest that condom use negates the mental health benefits of what he called "evolutionarily relevant sex." He theorized that there is a direct biochemical response in natural heterosexual relations that is blocked by condoms.

Brody wrote in the study, "Possible explanations for the interference of condoms with the health benefits of PVI include blocking of antidepressant and immunological agents in semen and genital secretions, reduced sexual satisfaction and intimacy, and psychopathology-prone persons who are more psychologically immature and/or heterosocially anxious being more likely to use condoms for PVI."

In an interview with the UK's Independent newspaper, Brody responded to criticisms from sex-campaigners at the Family Planning Association that his findings, if they were acted upon, would result in increases in sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.

"I have an interest in the best possible science," he said. "I don't want to let anything get in the way, whether its political correctness, or religion. I have deliberately not used the term 'heterosexual sex'," he said.

"Evolution is not politically correct, so of the very broad range of potential sexual behaviour, there is actually only one that is consistently associated with better physical and mental health and that is the one sexual behaviour that would be favoured by evolution. That is not accidental."

[Emphasis added]

Read More...

Once again this shows that the more we abuse our bodies and use them for our own selfish pleasures, the more harmful side effects there will be for both our bodies and our souls. As humans we are a composite being with a body and a soul, if we use our bodies in the wrong way, our souls and minds will suffer in a similar way.

Therefore, let us respect our bodies and follow God's divine plan for human sexuality! Only then will we be able to live life to the full and experience what God has destined for us!