End of year charitable gifts:
2005 offers more opportunity

		Office of Stewardship  and Development  Daun Maier, Associate Director

The end of the calendar year has historically been a time when the Diocese of Madison and parishes alike receive an increase in financial gifts.

This past year has been especially touching to many considering the devastating effects of the natural disasters that have occurred globally, nationally, and right in our own neighborhoods. We have generously opened our hearts to help those in need.

We instinctively reflect upon the many blessings we have been fortunate to receive and we look to our communities of faith and outreach as worthy recipients of our giving dollars.

The Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 (KETRA) was enacted to allow an increased level of tax-deductible gifts to charity up to a donor's total income until the end of 2005. This new legislation may provide a real opportunity for some donors.

Changes in cash gifts

This recent legislation has provided a way for individuals to make donations to help charities of their choice in a more substantial way; this includes giving to your church.

Modifications have been made to the charitable deduction rules pertaining to cash contributions. Cash gifts made to charities between August 28 and December 31, 2005 may be deducted under more liberal charitable deduction limits. This special opportunity allows more gifts to be made to qualifying charities like the Diocese or a parish.

In addition, because of the increase in the deduction limit, taxpayers over the age of 59^1/2 have a unique opportunity to withdraw funds from their qualified retirement plan or IRA and make direct donations to charity and take advantage of the 100 percent of AGI charitable giving limit to offset the additional retirement income triggered by the withdrawal.

However, consideration should be given to the state tax effect on any gift over 50 percent of AGI, as well as the effect on Social Security benefit taxability, other itemized deductions, or the alternative minimum tax. Certain techniques could trigger some additional tax liability.

It is important to discuss your particular situation with your tax professional before making any changes.

An example

Let's look at an example of how this may be beneficial.

John Parishioner is a retired teacher and an IRA owner. He has income this year of $40,000 and also has other income from municipal bonds. John makes a charitable gift each year to the Diocese. With $40,000 of income, he normally gives and deducts up to one-half of his income, or a maximum of $20,000 per year. He is 74 and has an IRA worth $950,000. John wants to make a major gift this year to the Diocese. He withdraws $50,000 from his IRA, and his income is now $90,000. John gives the $50,000 to the Diocese by December 31, 2005 and deducts the $50,000. Because of this law change, he is allowed to offset the IRA income of $50,000 by the additional charitable deduction of $50,000.

Specific rules apply based upon individual circumstances. For a complete narrative on these changes, please visit www.house.gov/jct/x-69-05.pdf

Stewardship benefit

Year-end giving presents to those who see stewardship as a way of life the means to provide both financial and spiritual benefit. It allows us the opportunity to give back to God the first fruits of his generosity.

Many individuals see year-end as an excellent time to make a lasting gift to their parish. With temporarily increased 2005 deduction levels, and increased awareness of tax saving gift options, year-end giving is becoming not only a great tool in financial planning but also an important way to more fully live out our Christian faith.

Any year-end giving should be carefully discussed with your professional advisor to determine the best possible plan for you to enhance your stewardship efforts. This article is not intended as professional advice.

Contact Daun Maier at the Diocese of Madison Stewardship and Development Office at 608-821-3046 for more information on charitable giving.

Thanks: A favorite word

	Guest commentary  Fr. Don Lange

At the height of his career, Mark Twain reportedly earned $5 per word for every work that he published. (Think of how much money that would be today!)

One day he received a letter with a $5 bill in it. The letter read, "Here is five dollars. Please send me your favorite word!" Mark Twain reportedly sent back this one-word reply: "Thanks!"

God likes to hear 'thanks'

The simple word "thanks" is one word that many of us like to hear. After he cured the 10 lepers, Jesus revealed that God also likes to hear the word "thanks."

In our country Thanksgiving is a national holiday during which we have the opportunity to thank God for our blessings. American tradition links the origin of Thanksgiving Day to the pilgrims whom the Old Testament influenced. After a long, hard winter, the pilgrims set aside three days to thank God for their blessings and their blessings with their Indian friends.

Failing to give thanks

Sometimes like the nine lepers who failed to thank Jesus, we may fail to thank those whom we take for granted. This happened to Willie.

During a mid-life evaluation, Willie realized that he had never thanked a teacher who helped him through a crisis when he was a student. He wrote her a thank you letter. Two days later he received this reply:

My Dear Willie,

Thank you very much for your letter. Your note came on a blue morning and it cheered me up as nothing has in years. You might be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years. And your letter was the first note of appreciation that I ever received. Thank you very much. God bless you!

Thank in word and deed

Willie's example reminds us that Thanksgiving is a day when we can thank others in word and deed. We can thank God and others in our prayers, by participation in Mass, or by a personal "thank you."

We can express our thanks in deeds by sharing the treasures of our time and talents. We can help the needy by contributing to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, by donating to a food pantry, or we can invite a lonely person for Thanksgiving dinner.

We can also visit shut-ins, persons in nursing homes, or hospital patients who long for visitors. We can do something kind for a loved one or thank them by the present of our presence.

The word "Eucharist" comes from a Greek word meaning thanks. During Thanksgiving Mass and the Sundays closest to it, participation in Mass offers us the graced chance to thank God for our blessings. May our spirit of Thanksgiving continue into Advent, Christmas, and the New Year.

Fr. Don Lange is a pastor emeritus of the Diocese of Madison.

Giving thanks: For funding the common good

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

Thanksgiving is a profoundly religious holiday. It owes its origins to the Pilgrim's recognition that the welfare of their community was due not to their own virtue and goodness - but to the grace of God.

That first Thanksgiving embraced a broad definition of community for it included, we are told, the Native Americans in the area. Apparently the first English Americans counted the neighborliness of the Native Americans among the blessings that enabled them to prosper in the New World.

In the nearly four centuries since, Americans have been at their best when they shared their gifts with each other for the good of all. And we have been at our worst when we forgot how to do that.

Reasons for thanks

Those lessons remain relevant today. For we still have reason to be thankful. Not only to God but also to each other for what we do personally and in community throughout the year.

We parents should thank the community for good schools, be they government, religious, or independent, so essential to the development of our children.

Those of us who enjoy fishing, hunting, camping, or hiking should thank the community for the parks, clean water, and undeveloped forests that we enjoy on weekends and vacations.

Anyone who has been homeless or a victim of domestic abuse should thank the community for the shelters and services that sustained them when they were in need.

Those with elderly relatives or who are elders themselves should thank the community for things like Meals on Wheels and the Community Options program, both of which help the aged remain independent and in their own homes.

State shares resources

These and many other blessings exist because we live in a place where people define the common good in terms beyond their own self-interest. We in Wisconsin, though we may gripe about taxes, nonetheless see beyond what our government costs us to appreciate the value of what it allows us to do with and for each other.

In this way our state has long been a place where people witness the truth affirmed so succinctly by the late Pope John Paul II. In explaining the relevance of the principle of solidarity, the Holy Father grounded our commitment to caring communities in the belief that "we are all truly responsible for all."

Resenting blessings

This commitment to community will be tested in a few days - as it is every year. For in December, we will we get our property tax bills. The number at the bottom of the bill will be large. For most of us it will be a bit larger than last year. We will grumble. We may even resent others whom we regard as consumers of our generosity. Some may even try to stoke that resentment.

But before we start complaining, let's remember the community-funded blessings mentioned above and others like them that enrich our lives and the lives of others. To the extent we give of our time and resources to support such efforts, we have a hand in such blessings. For in the end, the idea of "we all are responsible for all" is only realized when we support institutions and associations to help those whom we can't personally see and can't personally touch.

John Paul II often described freedom not as the ability to do want we want, but rather to do what we ought. As we ponder the temptation to assert our "right" to lower taxes, let's be sure to consider whether doing so may limit our ability to do what we ought to do for each other and for our communities. Let's also recall, with thanks, all we have done together.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.

A painful presumption:
What happens in the womb?

		Making Sense  Out of Bioethics  Fr. Tad  Pacholczyk

In the practice of medicine and medical ethics, we routinely make certain presumptions in favor of patients and their well-being.

When we see somebody bleeding, we presume we should stop the bleeding. When we see somebody in pain, we presume we should remedy the pain. When we see somebody sick, we presume we should heal the ailment.

Medicine presumes to operate this way all the time. You might say that medicine is defined by a general presumption of acting in favor of the goods of healing, comforting, and saving life.

Fetal pain controversy

Sometimes these common-sense presumptions come to be challenged in unexpected and even disturbing ways within the medical field. Recently the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article discussing whether infants in the womb can feel pain early in their development.

The article ignited considerable controversy, as the question came to be discussed in terms of abortion procedures carried out after 20 weeks of gestation. Many neonatal specialists note that infants around this age do appear to feel pain and respond to noxious stimuli.

Yet the authors of the JAMA article attempt to argue that because certain connections in the developing brain of the unborn infant have not yet been established by 20 weeks of age, pain perception by the infant may not be possible. The authors also make a concerted attempt to discount or discredit a number of the standard lines of evidence suggesting that infants in utero may feel pain quite early during a pregnancy.

What are some examples of this evidence suggesting that fetuses feel pain early on? Those who work full-time in neonatal intensive care units dedicated to helping premature infants recognize how these "preemies" readily respond to painful stimuli.

Surgeons routinely anaesthetize premature babies before they undergo operations. Children delivered as early as 21 weeks can have an audible cry. Some doctors believe that such distress can be felt even as early as 12 weeks.

If you stick a pin into the palm of a baby in utero who is eight weeks old, she will withdraw from this painful stimulus. In fact, such a baby will open her mouth in utero as though she were crying and carry out initial exhalation movements and other breath-type movements. Recent imaging studies have corroborated this "fetal homologue" of infant crying in the womb following painful or noxious stimuli.

Informing mothers

What is perhaps most telling about the JAMA article is that the authors recommend that mothers contemplating an abortion should not be given information about the pain that their child may experience during the procedure, because of uncertainty about when that child actually begins to experience pain.

Two of the article's authors, interestingly, failed to reveal important conflicts of interest when they submitted their article to the editor of the journal. The lead author is a former NARAL employee, and another is the director of an abortion clinic in San Francisco and also on the staff of the Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy, a pro-abortion advocacy center at the University of California-San Francisco.

Troubling conclusions

The conclusions of the paper are indeed troubling: "Because pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester, discussions of fetal pain for abortions performed before the end of the second trimester should be non-compulsory. Fetal anesthesia or analgesia should not be recommended or routinely offered for abortion because current experimental techniques provide unknown fetal benefit and may increase risks for the woman."

Pain has traditionally been understood as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage. So although the infant may be undergoing physical dismemberment during a termination procedure, the presumption somehow ends up being made by the authors that she is not experiencing discomfort until such time as it can be absolutely proven that she is.

This amounts to a "painful presumption" in the wrong direction.

Err on side of caution

If there is uncertainty about when the infant in utero can begin to feel pain, should we not err on the side of caution and presume that she is entitled to pain medication when being subjected to typically painful or noxious stimuli?

If we had any inkling that a young dolphin or puppy might suffer because of the way we were euthanizing them, we would seek to redress their pain, rather than carry on an academic argument aimed at preventing pain management for these young animals.

Yet a deeper concern remains. By offering pain control during an abortion, we still would not succeed in redeeming or sanitizing the act itself. Pain-free killing is still killing. But at least by encouraging abortion doctors and their pregnant patients to consider the pain the infant may experience, they may be prompted to consider a deeper dimension of what they are doing.

By challenging their highly suspect presumptions about fetal pain, they may ultimately be pushed to look not only at the discomfort implicit in the procedure, but to revisit the more basic question about the practice itself which brings the life of an innocent human being to an untimely and unjust end.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pa.