Yesterday the federal district court in DC ruled that the Obama administration policy of funding research that kills the embryo-child must be halted because plaintiffs stand a good chance of proving it violates the law. Here is what Deacon Keith Fournier has written about the decision at Catholic Online:
In a significant opinion issued by Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia human embryonic life was given a stay of execution on Monday, August 23, 2010. The Federal Court enjoined the implementation of the Obama Administration guidelines which would have allowed researchers to extract stem cells from “surplus” embryos donated by patients at fertility clinics. This “extraction” amounts to an execution of human embryonic life. These guidelines went into effect in July, 2009.
…In the Courts own words “having concluded that the Dickey-Wicker Amendment is unambiguous, the question before the Court is whether ESC (Embryonic Stem Cell Research) is research in which a human embryo is destroyed. The Court concludes that it is.”
…The efforts of this administration to use human embryonic life for deadly experimentation, in spite of the medical science which has proven that Adult Stem Cell Research, (which never injures or kills) is far more promising, is not only bad science but it is also morally reprehensible. On Monday, March 9, 2009, President Barrack Obama turned a whole class of human persons into commodities to be used by issuing an Executive Order. The NIH Guidelines which followed treat human embryos as property, capable of being “manufactured” and used as spare parts in experimentation which has produced no discernible scientific results and always kills the human embryonic person.
…..Every “extraction” of embryonic stem cells kills a living human embryonic person. This is not simply a “religious” position, it is medical science and the Judge in this opinion acknowledged these scientific facts. This opinion provides a resource for our work in the great human rights struggle of our age, restoring the legal recognition of the fundamental human right to life for all persons from conception to natural death. Read whole story at www.catholic.org

It took me some time to grasp just what the act of a contrite sinner approaching the priest for absolution was technically called. Was it “Confession”, which is what middle aged Catholics seem to favor calling it, “Penance” which Latin Mass and more traditional Catholics call it, or “Reconciliation”, the term modern – shall we say – liberal – Catholics seem to favor?

Well, according to the Catechism, it seems the proper title is “The Sacrament of Penance”, which includes confession (and contrition) and together with absolution makes up the “Rite of Reconciliation”. However you call it – as a priest, I love the confessional. I would stay there all day, and into the night, if it were possible. The Eucharist is of course the greatest of the sacraments, and celebrating at the altar has no equal. But Penance is a very close runner up.

The Confessional for a priest is an intensely personal encounter between Christ (in persona christi) and the penitent. What strikes me most as I sit to “hear” confessions, is the deep and intense desire of the penitent to be made “right with God.” The penitent knows that his (or her) sin has offended God and come between them. As a priest, I can feel the grief that underlies the confession.

The penitent’s confession, acceptance of penance (the “sentence” if you will) and act of contrition (expression of sorrow, repentance and resolution not to sin and avoid even the near occasion of sin), fills me as a priest with hope. To know that there are countless true believers (and even some agnostics) who want to do right by God and His moral law, want to treat their fellow human beings with dignity and respect, and ultimately want to follow a path in life that will make them better people and lead them along to heaven where there will be no sin, is a source of incomparable encouragement.

One more thing I like about Confession – when I “absolve” the penitent of his (or her) sins, I can feel the relief pour over and through them, the same relief I experience in the confessional. That’s right – as a priest I too go to “confession”, “penance” and “reconciliation” – all three, as often as I need to and as often as I can.

That’s whats “Right” about “Reconciliation”.