Haspel CIA nomination raises questions about “enhanced interrogation” and torture

Ultrasound image. / Courtesy of Matter of Life

Boston, Mass., May 16, 2022 / 17:18 pm (CNA).
A new pro-life movie that explores the case for life and the repercussions of abortion is airing May 16 and 17 in select theaters around the U.S. … […]

Denver, Colo., May 23, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With plans for the first human head transplant surgery looming in the next year, a lead doctor on the formidable project has high hopes for the procedure.

Along with the aim of finding a new body for a yet-to-be-selected patient, the physician says that the surgery – as a first step toward immortality – will effectively disprove religion.

But Catholic critics have called into question not only the ethics of such a risky procedure, but the dubious claim that such a development would render belief in God irrelevant.

“The actual trying of the surgery at this point I think would be unethical because of the tremendous risk involved, and it is an unproven surgery,” Dr. Paul Scherz, assistant professor of moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America, told CNA.

Sherz made his remarks following the news that Italian doctor Sergio Canavero is aiming to carry out the first human head transplant surgery within the next 10 months. It’s a process Canavero hopes will pave the way for the process of transplanting cryogenically frozen brains – and ultimately, in his view, to the eradication of death.

Canavero serves as director of Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group and has teamed up with Harbin Medical Centre and Doctor Xiaoping Ren, an orthopedic surgeon who was involved with the first successful hand transplant in the U.S. The first surgical attempt for the head transplant is expected to take place in China, where the group says they’re more likely to find a donor body.

Cryonics involves the freezing of the brain or even the whole body of patients, with expectations that future science will have the means to restore the frozen tissue and extend life.

Because conscious minds will have experienced “life” outside of death, Canavero said the surgery would then remove the fear of death and the people’s need for religion. He said if the process succeeds, “religions will be swept away forever.”

However, Sherz responded that even if the surgery was a success, it would not disprove the Catholic faith.

“There is nothing in the Catholic tradition of how we understand the soul that would think that if you moved a head or moved the brain that that wouldn’t allow the person to come back to life,” he said.

Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group has already claimed that a successful head transplant has been carried out on a monkey, but not all scientists agree that the operation can be recorded as a success.

Before the monkey’s head was stitched back together, it was removed, cooled, and the blood of the transplant body was cross circulated with an outside source. Canavero and his group claimed the supply of blood was then connected to prove the surgery succeeded without brain damage, but the spinal cord was left unattached.

How the connected blood supply proves the surgery is possible without brain damage was not described, and many bioethicists are skeptical of the publication of the surgery’s success without proper peer review and of the issues around the severed spine.

Because the technology has not yet been developed, the bioethicists worry that the severed spine may never be reconstructed, leaving the patient worse off than before.

Despite the pervasive belief in the surgery’s failure, Canavero claims there’s a 90 percent chance that the human head transplant will succeed. And not only that, its success would allow humans to “no longer need to be afraid of death.”

Father Tad Pacholczyk, who serves as a bioethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, disagreed with Canavero’s definition of being “brought back to life.”

He said to assume death as a necessary product of either the head surgery or brain surgery is gullible and mistaken, as there is potential for the patient to be merely unconscious.

“The patient undergoing the head transplant is not dead, only unconscious,” he told CNA. “There is not any ‘bringing back to life’…There is merely a restoration of consciousness, briefly lost during the movement of the head from one human body to the other.”

Scherz also said that the Church accepts an intimate and mysterious relationship between soul and body, and that the procedure’s success wouldn’t necessary disprove the soul or religion.

“Our neurological tissue has important part to play in our soul…The soul is always intimately related to the body. We are not just souls that are disembodied, right? We are embodied spirits or spirited bodies.”

Most physicians agree that the proposed surgery’s success rate is infinitesimal, and they’ve questioned the morality of a procedure that’s doomed to fail – and the unrealistic hope life extension projects could give to people.

“I am concerned that the rights of vulnerable patients undergoing cryonics cannot be protected indefinitely,” Dr. Channa Jayasena, a lecturer in Reproductive Endocrinology at Imperial College in London, told the Telegraph.

Cryonics, she said, “has risks for the patient, poses ethical issues for society, is highly expensive, but has no proven benefit.”

And the hope for immortal life, Scherz weighed in, isn’t a realistic desire in a fallen world. “Living forever in bodily form is not going to satisfy anyone,” he said.

“If the goal is not to help someone to get back bodily movement or things like that, but to try to live forever on this earth, then I think if you really want to get over the fear of death then you will have to come to terms with the fact that we are mortal.”

“That what’s going to help you to live a better life because you are going to be willing to give your life to things like service.”

In fact, he said that people in transhumanist movements have admitted they would most likely avoid risky behavior in order to preserve their lives.

“If life extension projects come into being there is so much more to lose – and you committed yourself to trying to live on this earth for as long as possible, which stands in contrast to the Catholic tradition and a lot of the philosophical traditions,” Scherz noted.

[…]

Denver Newsroom, May 6, 2020 / 04:49 pm (CNA).- Because of the ongoing pandemic, most Catholic parishes in the United States have had to forgo a treasured spring tradition this year: crowning Mary with flowers to honor her during the Marian month of May.

But planting a Mary garden can be another way of honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary with flowers this spring and summer while staying at home.

The tradition of planting Mary Gardens goes back centuries. In the Middle Ages, when much of the population was illiterate, priests and religious brothers and sisters would plant gardens and give the flowers and herbs religious names and symbolism in order to teach people about the faith, in the same way they would use stained glass windows to tell stories of the bible or the saints.

Katrina Harrington, a Catholic artist and mother living in California, has always loved flowers and her middle name – which is Rose. While she doesn’t consider herself a master gardener, she is a watercolor artist, and for a long time, flowers have been her favorite subject.

But several years ago, Harrington was seeking new inspiration and meaning for her art.

“I was trying to find some hidden meaning that I could add to it,” she said. “I have always loved hidden meanings, that’s one of the things I love about Catholic churches. For example, on the altar at the church I grew up in, I remember seeing that there were five marks, for the five wounds of Jesus.”

Harrington also remembered that, when she had been in high school, there was a club for Mary gardens – but it was one of the few activities she wasn’t involved in. She decided to do some research to see what Mary gardens were all about.

“I googled Mary gardens, just thinking, ‘What was that club even about? Is there anything that I can learn from it?’ And it turns out that the University of Dayton has a library focused just on Mary gardens. Their archives are full of so much information about Mary gardens. And I went down that rabbit hole – or I guess flower hole – and I’ve read so much about Mary gardens through that.”

Harrington said she also ordered about every book on Mary gardens that she could find.

“It’s really helped my faith, and it’s helped me to teach our faith to my children when we’re out walking.”

There are many different kinds of flowers and herbs that take on Marian significance that can be planted in a Mary garden, Harrington said.

Perhaps the most obvious flower associated with Mary is a rose.

“Our Lady is called The Mystical Rose. And also, when you hear about the beginnings of the rosary that was given to Saint Dominic, you hear about different legends where, as different saints prayed, roses would float up to Our Lady and she would gather them. So, every time we pray a rosary, I tell my children that ‘you are giving Our Lady a beautiful bouquet. We’re giving our Blessed Mother a crown of flowers,’” she said.

Columbines are another flower that can be planted in Mary gardens. Depending on their color, they can take on different religious meanings.

“Columbines that are red can often be called the Pentecostal Holy Spirit flower because, if you’ve ever seen them, they kind of point upside down with petals that look like…tongues of fire pointing up. So they look like the Holy Spirit coming down at Pentecost upon the Apostles’ heads,” she said.

But if the columbines are white, they are called “Our Lady’s Shoes”

“Another legend associated with the columbine is when Our Lady found out that her cousin Elizabeth was expecting Saint John the Baptist, and she walked to go take care of her,” Harrington said.

Legend has it “that everywhere Our Lady’s shoes or her slippers touched, little white columbines sprouted out of the earth marking her path. So, the other name for columbine would be ‘Our Lady’s Shoes,’” she explained.

Pansies have been given the Marian name “‘Our Lady’s Delight,’ and with that, we can tell our kids to think of how Our Lady delighted in Christ, in having him so close in her life,” Harrington explained.

Sunflowers have also been called “Mary’s Gold,” and can be reminiscent of Mary’s golden crown as Queen of Heaven and Earth, she said.

In her home state of California, bright fuchsia bougainvillea flowers grow abundantly on bushes, and have the religious name of “trinitaria, for Trinity, because in the middle of those flowers are three little white petals, and that’s surrounded then by the three pink pedals,” Harrington said.

“So when we walk by, I tell my children, ‘Oh, this is trinitaria. What prayers should we pray?’ And they know that then, we’ll pray the Glory Be. That’s been really great, to always be pointing my children to the Divine and having fun stories that could help them really lock in that image” and lead them into prayer, she said.

Rosemary and lavender are two herbs that have traditionally been called “Our Lady’s drying plants,” Harrington noted.

“The legend goes that when Our Lady was doing laundry for the Christ child, she laid his swaddling clothes upon the rosemary plant or the lavender bush and that is how they dried. And then that’s also how they got their sweet heavenly scents.”

Harrington paints and sells prints of various Marian flowers, including prints that have specific flowers representing the various mysteries of the rosary.

While her grandmother and parents have been the true gardeners of the family, Harrington said this year, because of the extra time at home due to coronavirus, she was inspired to start planting her own Mary garden.

“I am just very much a novice, but I’m excited to try during this shelter in place, social distancing time. I’m really excited to plant a Mary garden for my kids to help tend to and for us to be inspired by the beauty of God’s creation,” she said.

And she’s not the only one. Harrington said this year, she has noticed an uptick in interest in Mary gardens from followers of her social media and art website.

“Since the pandemic and the accompanying shelter in place that has led to an extraordinary amount of time at home, I think people are paying more attention to what surrounds them in their home,” she said.

“They want their home to be a place of refuge, a place of harboring health, and a place that points them to the divine. A Mary garden is a way to tend to beauty and is a perfect conduit to Jesus as the Blessed Mother always leads us to her Son. There have been many questions as to where to purchase a Mary statue for their garden and what flowers to include,” she said.

Harrington said to start a Mary garden, she advises people to look up what plants and flowers are native to their area, and which of those have Marian meanings. She then recommends that people either order seeds online or call their local nurseries to see what plants are available. It’s important to take into account factors like sunlight, and whether the plants will be indoors or outdoors, she said.

Harrington added that anyone could start a Mary garden, even if they don’t own land.

“It’s important to remember that when you’re trying to use flowers as a prayer guide, to not be so stuck on the word ‘garden’ and that you have to have land. My family and I, we rent. We don’t really actually have a big yard. We don’t have any grass. But we can plant in pots,” she said.

“If you have only an indoor space or a small outdoor space, I would try to find a great plant that doesn’t need a ton of sunlight that can be on a windowsill,” she said. “And if you can, just put your statue of Our Lady next to that.”

Harrington said she hopes to publish guides to Marian gardens sometime soon, and more information on those or her art can be found on her website.

She said now in particular is a good time for people to slow down and enjoy the leisure of gardening, since most people have to stay at home much more than they are used to due to the pandemic, and she hopes that Mary gardens can be a source of joy and rest for those who plant one.

“As Saint Paul of The Cross said: ‘Let everything in creation draw you to God. Refresh your mind with some innocent recreation and needful rest. If it were only to saunter through the garden or the field, listening to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the meadows, the sun, the sky, and the whole universe, you will find that they exhort you to love and praise God, that they excite you to extol the greatness of the sovereign architect who has given them their being.’”

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