TIA,

I am taking the liberty of sharing this link with you, as I believe you will be interested in knowing the inventor of the birth control pill has now repudiated it and says it has caused a 'catastrophe' in Europe.

I would be honored if you would visit my blog to find sentiments very like yours, but terribly less gracefully delivered! You might like, for example, the 'Letter to Castrillon Hoyos,' but 'Holy Mass and the Stock Market' might also at least amuse you. Here's the address.

I like your site very much and have bookmarked it.

     Jan Baker



TIA responds:

Mrs. Jan Baker,

Thank you for kind words about our website and for the news.

We visited your interesting site and read the recommended articles. They appear to us intelligent and very well written. We are passing on your invitation to our readers.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

TIA,

Here is a question that has been puzzling me for 40 years or more - any answers?

At the time the encyclical Humane Vitae was issued it was known in Catholic [and secular] medical and scientific circles that the effects of the Pill were threefold - contraceptive, sterilizing and abortifacient, and that the IUD was an abortifacient. The Pill is a form of chemical castration of women and it poisons the womb - man's first environment. The IUD attacks the human embryo by preventing implantation. Yet the encyclical does not mention the latter points. Why not?

In this article Castellvi points out that "this anti-implantation effect is acknowledged in scientific literature, which shamelessly speaks of an embryo loss rate. Curiously, however, this information does not reach the public at large."

Not reached the public after 40 or more years? And whose fault is that? I'd say it's the fault of the clergy, beginning with the Pope and the Cardinals and Bishops he has appointed.

Sure many Catholic women deluded themselves into taking the Pill and using the IUD, but maybe their consciences would have been pricked sooner had the Church spoken the full truth on the Pill and IUD before, during, and after Humanae Vitae.

     Randy Engel

Dear TIA,

A recent traveler to these parts [of India], who is very supportive of Mother Teresa and her nuns, recently spoke to me about them. This is how I interpreted this traveler's views:

The Missionaries of Charity cannot, for instance, bring orphan babies and infants into the Catholic fold simply because the adoptive parents may not be Catholic.

Catholic evangelization need not be a part of the charisma of Mother Teresa's nuns because the Church right through its history has allowed the setting up of religious orders purely for the purpose of performing Corporal Works of Mercy. Since Our Lord Himself asked for such works to be performed, these works contain and radiate Christ in a self-sufficient way. There is no need to "top-up"(for want of a better word) Christ in these works by indulging in evangelization.

You may wish to comment.

     Best wishes & God bless

     N.C., India



TIA responds:

Dear N.C.,

Practicing the Corporal Works of Mercy without evangelization is mere philanthropy. The acts have merit on the natural level; but if they don't lead to the supernatural, that is, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, they lose their final purpose. Charity is the love of neighbor for the love of God. When we omit God in our charity, it becomes pagan philanthropy. Certain branches of Masonry also promote such pagan philanthropy that does not lead to Christ, but rather to universal fraternity.

It seems to us that the deliberate omission to evangelize by the Missionaries of Charity is scandalous. Such attitude denies their very name. If there is no evangelization, i.e., no conversion to the Catholic Faith, there is no "missionary" labor. Perhaps they could change their name to Volunteers of the Universal Brotherhood.

What you reported regarding their policy testifies to their virtual apostasy.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

Hi,

I'm a Catholic myself and also received the myths of the Middle Ages email. I didn't take offense to it; it was simply something stupid someone wrote because they thought they could explain customs and sayings. I'm pretty sure that it in no way was meant to slander the Church. It didn't make me feel that they were trying to say that Catholics are ignorant. I doubt the religion of the time had anything to do with it.

Honestly, to imply that people are out to get us because of emails like that makes us look as paranoid as the fundies who are terrified that Obama is a Muslim in secret and wants to outlaw Christianity.

     S.K.

Dear TIA,

Here is something to keep the pot deservedly stirred; namely, the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church have dropped the Filioque from The Nicene Creed at Mass, for several years now. The Ukrainian Catholic Church, which I attend daily, still maintains it, but the old deacon here drops it during Mass. A young deacon-in-training told me that the Ukrainians need proper catechesis before they omit the Filioque ... implying that the change is coming for them as well.

Would you like to comment on this?

     Hail Mary,

     P.B.



TIA responds:

Dear P.B.,

What you told us is sad. One sees that the reforms of Vatican II are gradually entering all the rites of the Church, even the smaller ones.

It is not difficult to see that the abolition of the Filioque is to please the so-called Orthodox and to follow John Paul II, who recited the Creed with them several times using a formula without the Filioque. As is known, Photius, who instigated the Eastern Schism, denied that the Holy Ghost simultaneously "proceeds from the Father and the Son" [ex Patre Filioque procedit]. His followers to this date sustain the same error. On the contrary, as you stressed, we Catholics confess this doctrine in the Creed since it is one of the fundamental dogmas of our Holy Faith.

This is one of the many points we Catholics have the obligation to resist in the teachings of the conciliar Popes.

Progressivism would like to do away with the liturgical oasis these Eastern Catholic Rites still represent for Catholics who do not accept the Novus Ordo Mass.

These are sad times indeed - that make the intervention of Our Lord more necessary than ever.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

Follow us

  The Hole in the Dike of Morality

  Relics to Schismatics

  Counsels to a Convert from the Schismatic Church

  Curiosities from the Orthodox Arena

  Pro-Abortion Politicians Continue to Receive Communion