Yet another invasion of the state against the church

Catholic hospital sued for refusing breast implants to “transgendered.

Well the government is at it again, attempting to force political correct views down the Churches throat. Breast implantation is an elective surgery an therefore a Catholic run hospital should not be forced to perform a surgery on a male for getting breast implants, when there are other hospitals that can perform the surgery and no danger to the individuals live.

Wertz[ legal director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco] believed the hospital’s policy violates the Unruh Act, a state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. “There’s simply no religious exemption in the Unruh Act,” Wertz said.

I frankly don’t care what the Unruh act says. The hospital should appeal it to the Federal courts. Given the liberal slant of the federal district court out there, I would expect the appeal to go before the circuit or even the Supreme court. Even if it’s upheld at the supreme court, I’d rather see the hospital sell it to a secular corporation then operate under such an immoral law.

The church operates hospitals to fill it’s mission to care for the sick. Cosmetic surgery of any kind (outside of burn victims and the grossly physically deformed) doesn’t fit into the church mission IMO.

The state as usual see’s no problem in usurping church rights and the secular press will ignore this injustice, because their to blind to see it.

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Which vow is hardest to maintain today?

With new years resolutions as a part of secular society tradition; I got to thinking about vows that we all make and some that join religious groups make and what would be the most difficult to maintain in today’s society.

Now we all hear about the high divorce rate with marriages. And I would venture that most people would think that Chasity is the most difficult vow to maintain. However having known many priest in my life I would have to say that sampling would be heavily weighted towards the vow of obedience, not Chasity.

Lets look at the list of vows.

1) A vow/oath – this could be to testify to the truth in a court of law, but it’s also what we make a contract with God as may of us have done in the past “Please God if you do XYZ, then I will do ABC”.

2) Wedding vows – self explanatory.

3) Religious vows:

A) Poverty

B) Chasity

C) Obedience

D) Stability (Benedictines and other monastic orders)

E) Silence

F) Known as the 4th vow for Jesuits – obedience to the Pope

G) Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa) to serve the poorest of the poor

Everyone is called to their vocation – single, married or religious life. Of the three I would say that the single life is the most difficult. Society expects you to get married if you don’t chose the religious life, but I certainly believe that God calls some of us to be single for life. This life vocation doesn’t have the support system that the other two vocations offer, but it does allow great freedom to accomplish many things in life that the other vocations can only dream of.

Divorce rates for America at lest are 40% for first timers, 67% for second, and 74% for third or more.

Divorce rates among Christian groups

Denomination (in order of decreasing divorce rate)	% who have been divorced
Non-denominational **	34%
Baptists	29%
Mainline Protestants	25%
Mormons	24%
Catholics	21%
Lutherans	21%

Barna Research Group -1999 Survey inspires debate over why faith isn’t a bigger factor in marriage

So much for the marriage vow.

Silence as a vow I would think could be the most difficult, but in a monastic setting likely isn’t hard given you have a very selected group of individuals all committed to re-enforcing that vow.

I think perhaps a vow of poverty in this country would be very hard, because our standard of living is much higher then that of third world countries. Even the actual poor (those not taking a vow of poverty) are more well off then the majority of third world people.

But for me I think the vow of stability is likely the most difficult. To select a place to live and then realize that you will never leave that place for the rest of your life. In our mobile society I can’t think of being anchored to a fixed location. I think I would keep silent for life more easily then to be stuck in one place until I die. But certainly there is something to be said for building up a location with strong roots. It also forces you to work out your problems, you can’t transfer to some place else and avoid conflict. It forces you to deal with people and resolve conflict.

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