Year: 2014

On
Fr. Robert Barron

Your life is not about you

Time Magazine’s cover story “The Childfree Life” has generated a good deal of controversy and commentary.

The photo that graced the cover of the edition sums up the argument: a young, fit couple lounge languidly on a beach and gaze up at the camera with blissful smiles — and no child anywhere in sight.

What the editors want us to accept is that this scenario is not just increasingly a fact in our country, but that it is morally acceptable as well, a lifestyle choice that some people legitimately make.

Whereas in one phase of the feminist movement, “having it all” meant that a woman should be able to both pursue a career and raise a family, now it apparently means a relationship and a career without the crushing encumbrance of annoying, expensive, and demanding children.

Childlessness on the rise

Childlessness is on the rise in the United States. Our birthrate is the lowest in recorded history, surpassing even the crash in reproduction that followed the economic crash of the 1930s.

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On
Fr. Donald Lange

Responsible fathers are compassionate and good examples for their children

After Bubba Watson won the 2014 Masters, his two-year-old adopted son, Caleb, waddled onto the green to be embraced by his father.

He reminded me of John F. Kennedy Jr., saluting his father’s casket. Bubba Watson’s wife followed Caleb, and the entire family basked in the moment of glory.

Bubba Watson’s dad nicknamed him “Bubba” after former NFL player Bubba Smith, who was a good role model.

He said that his son Caleb is teaching him how precious life is. “He puts life in perspective,” he said. “Golf is a game. When I play bad, he doesn’t care. When I play great, he doesn’t care. All he cares about is, ‘Daddy give me a hug. Daddy pick me up.'”

Besides his family, another influence on Watson’s game is his faith. “Looking at my son, I want to be as Christ-like as possible,” Watson said. “I’ll never be perfect. I’m always going to mess up, but my whole goal is to be the role model for my son.”

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On
Tony Magliano

Poverty, inequality, and Pope Francis

Just think about it. According to the United Nations, approximately 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty throughout the world.

Clean water and sanitation, adequate nutritious food, a safe job with fair pay, an education, medical care, and a decent place to call home are unfulfilled dreams to these brothers and sisters of ours.

Every day they must somehow find a way to survive on less than $1.25. Even in the poorest countries, it is almost impossible to live on this meager amount. And in fact, many do not make it.

Affects of extreme poverty

Every day approximately 21,000 fellow human beings die from hunger and hunger related diseases. And according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, some 300 million children go to bed hungry every night.

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On
Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk

Editing our genes? We must be vigilant about use of new techniques

A number of serious diseases are known to occur because of defects or mutations in our DNA.

Curing such diseases could in principle be carried out by rewriting the DNA to fix the mutated base pairs. Yet until recently, scientists have remained largely stymied in their attempts to directly modify genes in a living animal.

New gene-editing technique

Findings described in the March 30, 2014, issue of Nature Biotechnology, however, reveal that a novel gene-editing technique, known as CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), can be used successfully in mice to reverse disease symptoms for a liver defect known as type I tyrosinemia. In humans, this potentially fatal ailment affects about one in 100,000 people.

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