…Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.
First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
…
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers – in some ways less so – but more open.
This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.
What?! You mean what the social engineeers and the U. N. do is all secular self-serving bullshit funded by our tax money which translates into ultimate meaninglessness and free (and defective) condoms for everyone?
The beloved founder of Human Life International, Fr. Paul Marx, was not known to mince words when it came to what he called the “conspiracy of silence” from the pulpits of our Church on the issue of contraception, but his insights of twenty and thirty years ago were right on target and remain true to this day: “Future generations,” he said, “will wonder why so many Catholic bishops and priests in the West didn’t see contraception as a seminal evil and the chief cause of the Church’s swift decline.” There is the core issue. Priestly silence about contraception is deadly both to the Church and to our society.
To this day the vast majority of Catholic clergy refuse to talk about contraception despite their moral obligation to do so. I can tell you that it is not only in the United States that this is the case; it is true in every part of the world. The reasons for this negligence range from outright heresy to lack of moral courage to inexcusable ignorance of the subject matter. Whatever the reason, the effect is the same: something I call clerical contraception. Contraception itself is a rejection of God’s sovereignty over one’s marriage and a refusal to obey the Lord’s command to “be fruitful and multiply.” The priest, though not married, analogously contracepts the life-giving seed of truth when he refuses to preach the Catholic Faith—all of it. Faith comes through hearing, says St. Paul, and it is through the priestly ministry that Christ transmits the Faith to His bride, the Church, so that she can be fruitful and multiply the souls who are brought to salvation.
This is probably the main reason why so many Catholics today contracept or sterilize themselves and see absolutely no contradiction in receiving the Eucharist every Sunday and believing themselves in perfect communion with the Church. They’ve never been admonished that it is a mortal sin to use contraception or get sterilized. They’ve never been told of the physical and spiritual danger of these practices, and they’ve never been made aware of the magnificent, life-giving alternatives that the Church offers to the Ideology of Infertility.
Priests who are silent about the teaching on contraception also forget two very important things: first, priestly vocations generally come from large families. Failure to preach openness to life and generosity with children has a direct effect on how many men will be standing in the trenches with us later on. Contracepting this teaching has the same effect as contracepting the marital act: sterility. The persistent sterility of priestly vocations in the West is caused by priests who are silent about the plague of contraception among the laity and forget that their own vocations are the result of their parents’ generosity with life. Overworked priests will be reaping the fruits of their silence on contraception for a long time.
Secondly, priestly silence about contraception has eternal consequences. The price of that silence is the loss of souls. Contracepting men and women who are not warned of their sin and who therefore do not repent of it risk the death of their immortal souls, and that is a scandal of immense proportions. To be warned is to be forewarned, especially about something so crucial. Perhaps the only danger of greater consequence is the danger to the priests themselves who don’t do their job: they risk their own spiritual deaths because in the end they will be held accountable for preaching the Church’s full message “in season and out of season.”
All priests should read the Lord’s message to the prophet Ezekiel to know the high stakes of failing to preach the fullness of Christ’s teaching: “If I say to the wicked man, You shall surely die; and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his wicked conduct so that he may live: that wicked man shall die for his sin, but I will hold you responsible for his death” (Ez 3:18). May every priest take this warning to heart!
Their situation is a common experience for large families. Perfect strangers showing visible incredulity or disgust, intentionally making condescending remarks within earshot, or coming up and boldly asking inappropriate questions. I should qualify my statement: It is a common experience for white families. I doubt too many large black or Muslim families hear these remarks (although other things are probably said behind their backs). I suspect that those who make such remarks are intimidated and angered that couples of their own generation, racial group and cultural background are not following the contemporary norm for families: 0, 1, 2 or 3 children. The hypocrisy of this faned shock is that many of my generation grew up in large families or had relatives or friends who did. We have such things before, often lived it firsthand. We simply pretend it is foreign and unbelievable.
Just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and holy New Year.
While things look somewhat bleak for those who value family and conservative values, I have some real hope as we start 2009.
All that what appears to be really isn’t. What the economic crash should teach us is that what appears certain and insurmountable can change overnight. Human foundations which built the culture of death can crumble in seconds. I believe we are near the beginning of it.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” – Matt.7:24-27
As the months and years go by, it will become increasingly evident – and it really should be by now anyway – that the public education system is a tool of the social marxists to corrupt our children.
If you can do it, pull them now. Homeschool them or send them to private school.
Even With More Women on Birth Control, Many Don’t Hear About the Variety of Side Effects
By LAUREN COX
ABC News Medical Unit
Dec. 18, 2008—
A new pilot program in London will make the birth control pill available next month, through pharmacists, without a prescription. It’s a big shift from December 1955, when scientists made the first presentation that progesterone can stop women from ovulating, and many states had laws banning the use of contraception.
Despite nearly 50 years of access to the pill, some women are clueless about side effects that doctors might not bother sharing, and some that are just being discovered.
“Doctors in general tend to hesitate to suggest things to the patient,” said Dr. Nanette Santoro, director of reproductive endocrinology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and a member of The Endocrine Society.
“These are things that wouldn’t have a major health impact.”
Santoro said, with limited time in appointments, doctors focus on the major side effects that can pose a health risk: the risk of blood clots among smokers, high blood pressure, and stroke with some migraine headaches, for example.
But Santoro knows of many less-pressing and idiosyncratic side effects from the pill that don’t always make it into the doctor’s talk.
Women on the pill may suffer a lackluster sex drive, mood swings, or even extra sinus pressure, she said.
“Some women may notice their sinuses are a little stuffier,” Santoro explained. “It speaks to the bigger point that pills do affect the mucus production of the body.”
That means mucus, whether on the cervix or in the nose, can become thicker.
This August, research began to confirm another strange connection between the birth control pill and a woman’s nose.
In a study of about 100 college students in the U.K., scientists found that the pill may change how women find a man’s scent sexually attractive.
The study collected body odor from volunteers and put it in jars for the ladies to smell. Among the 200-300 different chemical compounds in sweat, researchers tried to draw a connection to the woman’s reaction to the sweat and a by-product in the sweat from the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which contribute to the body’s immune system.
Since the late 1990s, research has shown that women find the scent of a man more attractive if he has MHC genes that are different from their own, and less attractive if he has similar MHC genes.
But that all may change two months after a woman goes on the pill.
The Pill May Change How You Choose a Man
“In the pill-using group, there was a significant shift in their preference for men who had more similar odors,” said Craig Roberts, a co-author of the August MHC study appearing in the “Proceedings of the Royal Society B,” and a lecturer at the University of Liverpool in the U.K.
Roberts said the women in the control group who didn’t take the pill only started to find men with different MHC genes more attractive in the second round of body odor sniff tests.
“It’s an odd thing to do, smell odors in jars,” Roberts said. “We don’t know the effects in the real world, but it does carry implications for women who are using the pill, and you can extrapolate from this very artificial laboratory study quite a long way.”
For example, “They may choose someone they may not choose otherwise,” he said. In theory, Roberts said a woman may choose a man while she’s on the pill and feel fine, but subconsciously find her mate less attractive if she goes off the pill.
“There is evidence that couples that are more MCH similar to each other have more difficulty conceiving, and they have more miscarriages,” added Roberts, who has also cited research that women who marry men with similar MCH genes are more likely to have an affair.
Aside from chemical conjectures, Einstein’s Santoro has heard straight from her patients that the pill can affect one’s sex life.
“Clearly, pills suppress androgen production in the ovary, so, to the extent that androgen levels drive sex drive in women, it could affect them,” said Santoro, who is also a doctor with the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
“It’s also possible for some women, especially if they’re Catholics, to have a libido problem. … Once they start on the pill, it may reduce their enjoyment in some way out of guilt,” she said.
Santoro said many of her patients tend to think of the pill as an off-switch for hormones, but in truth, the pill exposes women to higher levels of hormones to overcome their own cycle.
Other Strange Side Effects From the Pill
“Because the pill in a lot of ways produces a pseudo-pregnant state, some of the side effects of pregnancy are noticed in the pill,” Santoro said.
That means women on the pill may experience heartburn, or constipation, or sleep disturbances, either as insomnia or extra sleepiness.
Santoro said doctors are also less likely to get into great detail about weight changes.
“We tell our patients that weight doesn’t change if you take the pill … but among the individual women, there may be some who gain and some who lose,” said Santoro, who added that large studies on the subject might cancel out the average weight changes experienced by women on the pill.
Overall, Santoro said she’d spend more time talking about the pill’s more serious health risks and side effects with a patient.
“Women over 35 who smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day — they shouldn’t be taking the pill at all,” she said.
For patients who have migraines with aura, which refers to feelings and symptoms noticed shortly before the headache begins, “they should not take pills without making sure everybody’s on board.”
Santoro said although research hasn’t drawn any hard-and-fast conclusions about side effects from taking the pill for an extended period of time, many of her patients have decided to give the hormones a break.
“It’s outdated, but some women feel better if they take a little ‘pill holiday’ now and then,” she said. (Source)
It’s not that they are “clueless”. It’s that the feminists purposely keep them in the dark and suppress information. They do this, of course, to sustain their religion of sexual idolatry and faux freedom.
Dr. M. McKay
Psychologist
Diplomate in Clinical Psychology
2100 Bloor Street West, Suite 6124
Toronto, ON
M6S 5C5
416-580-9570
November 26, 2008
Ms. Emmanuelle Savours
Deputy Secretary, Chancellery of Honours
Office of the Secretary to the Governor General
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A1
Dear Ms. Savours:
Re: Henry Morgentaler & Order of Canada
I am writing to you as a Psychologist and as a concerned citizen regarding the above-named recipient of the Order of Canada. As a Psychologist I have practiced over 30 years in the area of child welfare and have been involved in a number of projects involving children’s rights. I have devoted much of my professional life to providing service, support and advocacy for those children who fit into Dr. Henry Mogentaler’s category of “unwanted children.” I was shocked and very disturbed at the decision to award Henry Morgentaler an Order of Canada. This decision, in my view, sends a most unfortunate message to society and especially to people who have had experiences of rejection but who, thankfully, escaped the ministrations of Dr. Morgentaler. I do not share his views that these people who experienced parental rejection are undesirables– the type of people who are likely to wreak havoc on society–the type of people who end up at war crimes tribunals.
As a private citizen, I am also aware of the disparity of response to Mr. David Ahenakew’s negative attitudes and Dr. Morgentaler’s harmful attitudes and actions. In keeping with the Advisory Council’s recommendations and actions by the governor general in revoking Mr. David Ahenakew’s Order of Canada membership, it is my position that it will be necessary to revoke Henry Morgentaler’s Order of Canada in accordance with your Article 25(c) of the Constitution of the Order of Canada.
Mr. David Ahenakew’s membership was revoked on the basis that not revoking it would “bring the Order into disrepute because of his stated negative attitudes toward the Jews”. Mr. Ahenakew reportedly blamed the holocaust on the Jews, obviously an unfortunate and uninformed idea. However, there is no evidence that he actually assaulted or killed any Jews.
On the other hand, we have Dr. Henry Morgentaler who has put forward a similarly untutored idea about unwanted children being responsible for the holocaust and (from what appears from my understanding of his stated opinions) all types of hate-based behaviour in society. There is absolutely no scientific basis for his ideas, (many of the Nazis, for instance, were ordinary well-adjusted family men, as documented by serious psychological and sociological researchers, e.g. Hannah Arendt); but Henry Morgentaler has used these prejudicial and dangerous attitudes about children to justify and promote the killing of thousands of infants. Whereas Mr. Ahenakew’s ill-informed theories have not resulted in deaths, but he has nonetheless been deprived of his Order of Canada as a result of his opinions, Dr. Mogentaler’s ill-informed theories have resulted in the murder of thousands of unborn children who have been labelled, by him, as undesirables and dangerous. In essence, the Order of Canada has bestowed honour on someone who espouses attitudes and policies which are virtually identical to the Nazis’ beliefs that the Jews were undesirable, dangerous people—but in this case, it is rejected babies who are the dangerous undesirables. (It is interesting how the migration of the notion from “undesired” to “undesirable” can so easily occur, the ease of which should be sobering and instructive).
It is, therefore, untenable, that while Mr. Ahenakew’s Order is revoked, that Dr. Morgentaler continues to tarnish the reputation of the Order of Canada by retaining his. I trust that this information will prompt a rapid response to bring the Order of Canada into compliance and consistency with its earlier rulings.
On another note, what do you think would have happened to him in uetero? Aborted? Yeah, probably. And so would his message have been to all of the self-absorbed youth today who are committing suicide.
Seven Christian students in Quebec have been handed suspensions in the last few days – and could face expulsions – for refusing to participate in a new mandatory Ethics and Religious Culture course that, according to a critic, is a “superficial mishmash of trendy theoretical platitudes” with the goal of convincing children that “all religions – including pagan animism and cults – are equally ‘true.’”Canada’s National Post has reported on the developing confrontation between educators who have ordered students to take the course and students and their parents who object to what they see as a virtual indoctrination into a social and moral relativism.
While seven students already have been targeted for punishment, hundreds more are demanding to be relieved of the obligation to attend the classes, and several parents have begun legal actions over the course. (Source)
_____________
MONTREAL – A new religion course taught in schools across Québec was intended to improve inter-cultural understanding, but so far it is generating deep division as hundreds of parents pull their children out of class. A high school in Granby, QC, has in the past week handed one-day suspensions to seven students boycotting the Ethics and Religious Culture course on the grounds that it violates their freedom of conscience. In nearby Drummondville, a couple will be going to court next spring with a constitutional challenge to the mandatory course. The course “is forcing children to learn the content of other religions,” Jean Morse-Chevrier, president of the Québec Association of Catholic Parents, said yesterday. “Therefore it is the state deciding what religious content will be learned, at what age, and that is totally overriding the parents’ authority and role.” The new course is the final step in a secularization of Québec schooling that began with a 1997 constitutional amendment replacing the province’s denominational school boards with linguistic ones. A 2005 law changed Québec’s Education Act and its Charter of Rights to eliminate parents’ right to choose a course in Catholic, Protestant or moral instruction, and the changes came into effect last June. The curriculum, which is followed by children from Grades 1 through 11, gives greatest emphasis to what it terms Québec’s religious heritage [in a pure relativistic way]– Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism and traditional aboriginal spirituality. But it also covers the full spectrum of world religions and belief systems.Stéphanie Tremblay, a spokeswoman for Québec’s Education Department, said school boards across the province have received and rejected more than 1,400 requests from public-school parents seeking to have their children exempted from taking the course. The dissenters represent a small minority of the one million children [false : around 800,000 including pre-school whom is not concerned] enrolled in public schools.“The course was designed with an eye to respecting the freedom of conscience and religion of all students,” she said.“It is not a religious instruction course. It is religious culture. We introduce young people to religious culture like we introduce them to musical culture. The goal is to better know and understand others.”
Québec parents pull students out of new class
For Diane Gagné and her 16-year-old son Jonathan, evangelical Christians in Granby, the course teaches values that run counter to theirreligion. Jonathan has been sitting out the course this fall, which is taught for about two hours a week. Last Friday he was told by J-H-Leclerc secondary school that he had been suspended for the day. If he continues to skip the class, school rules could eventually lead to expulsion. Ms. Gagné said her son remains determined despite the suspension. “He told me, ‘Mom, I am still standing, and I’m going to keep standing and fight this to the end.’ We’re prepared to go right to expulsion.”Jean-Yves Côté is the lawyer representing the Gagné family as well as the Drummondville family that has launched a court challenge.He said the Granby school is the only one in the province that has taken such a hard line against students boycotting the course. “All the parents are doing is claiming a right that is recognized, the right to educate one’s child in conformity with one’s religious or philosophical convictions,” he said. The Drummondville case, scheduled to be heard in May before Superior Court, is expected to test whether the new course infringes constitutionally guaranteed rights. Mr. Côté said the issue could end up before the Supreme Court of Canada. The new course is also mandatory in private schools, and Montréal’s Loyola High School has initiated its own court challenge. Parents of more than 600 of the Jesuit school’s students asked to have their children exempted from the course, and all were refused by the province. Paul Donovan, the school’s principal, said much of the curriculum is already taught at Loyola, but not in the “relativistic” way favoured by the Education Department.He said the course does not ask children to distinguish between right and wrong. “What it essentially says is that religion is just, ‘You like tomato soup and I like pea soup, so don’t be all offended because someone likes tomato soup. It’s really just a matter of preference,’” he said. “Religion could be Wiccan or Raelian or any of the new movements or atheism or agnosticism.” So far Loyola has refused to teach the Ethics and Religious Culture class. “I can’t tell my teachers to teach that course in conscience. I can’t,” Mr. Donovan said. (Source)
Come and get it. This should be interesting. I think the Ministere du Propaganda is underestimating the resolve of parents. The socialists can push the liberal propaganda on the public in general, but when they start forcing parents to educate their children in a way that is in complete opposition to the core of their being? There’ll be a fight. And it’s about time too. Where there is no resistance, there can be no change.
Here is an article by Barbara Kay on yet another way in which the Nanny State is mandating what people are to think and say. What the hell, Canadians as a whole have largely abandoned being thinking and responsible adults anyway. Give them their bread and circuses (i.e. things to buy and sexual license) and they will gladly let the state run the rest. Contra Aristotle I do not believe most human beings are truth seekers – I think they are convenient ideas and comfort seekers. Real thinking is hard work and what do you get at the end of the day? That is why the Sophists were so popular in Plato and Aristotle’s day, and in ours. Barbara Kay is one of the half dozen columnists in Canada consistently worth reading. She is a self-professed atheist but unlike most atheists hasn’t got an axe to grind against religion in general and Christianity in particular.
Dr J Dean Sandham
Dean Faculty of Medicine
University of Manitoba
266 Brodie Centre
Bannatyne Campus
727 McDermot Avenue
Winnipeg, MB R3E 3P5
email: dean_sandham@umanitoba.ca
cc.
Dr. David T. Barnard, President and Vice Chancellor
Dr. Jon Gerrard
Premier Gary Doer
Theresa Oswald, Minister of Health
James Turk, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Teachers
Re: Dismissal of Dr. Larry Reynolds
_______________________________________________
Dear Dr. Sandham,
I wish to express my deepest and most profound objection to the University of Manitoba’s decision not to renew Dr. Larry Reynolds contract as Head of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Manitoba.
In what was obviously a politically motivated decision, the University of Manitoba has shown its intolerance and bigotry against a renowned and experienced professor and doctor because he did not tow the politically correct pro-abortion and pro-establishment line regarding family medicine. In the November 25, 2008 issue of The Manitoban , James Turk, the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ executive director objected to the jackboot tactics of the Administration against Dr. Reynolds.
According to Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) executive director James Turk, Reynolds was dismissed because he took positions that disagreed with the WHRA, and represents an encroachment on academic freedom. “He was the most senior member of the department as far as I know, probably the most experienced, the longest teaching member [ . . . ] nationally known for his work in family medicine,” Turk said. “The university is complicit in … getting rid of him, even though they’re short of staff,” Turk said. After Reynolds published a letter about the importance of family medicine in the Winnipeg Free Press, “He got a letter from WRHA that he should have had permission,” Turk said. “No professor should have to get permission to publish a letter in his field.” (Source: The Manitoban)
In addition to the question of academic freedom which has long been a hallmark of Canadian universities, one would also think that due to the shortage of qualified medical professionals in this country, the University of Manitoba – or any other government supported institution for that matter - should not be engaging in some kind of veiled political witchhunt against one its distinguished professors for having the audacity to hold contrary opinions to the University’s “Academic Authority”.
As part of a constituency who represents social conservatives in Canada, I will be notifying my membership about the University of Manitoba’s attack against freedom of speech and its rank political bias towards professors whole hold traditional views. I’m not sure how you think carving out and aborting such a constituency will serve the University and the country in the long term – especially in terms of its severe health care challenges – but I suppose you think you know best.
Yours truly,
John Pacheco
Social Conseravitives United
________________________________________
The axe drops on Dr. Larry Reynolds: the REAL reasons
To any experienced journalist there was always a strange subtext to the abrupt removal of Dr. Larry Reynolds from his posts as Head of the Department of Family Medicine and Professor at the University of Manitoba and Head of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s Family Medicine Program. Something rang wrong in the alleged reasons his contracts were not renewed. And why he was given all of one month’s notice to clear out.
It took a while, but now we can reasonably conclude the real reasons he was axed. (Yes, we know, technically his contract was not renewed, but essentially he was dismissed from jobs he didn’t want to leave without an explanation.)
Watching the university launch a campaign of character assassination against Dr. Reynolds was one thing. But when they breached his legal rights to privacy by leaking bits of his personnel record, it was clear something was up.
Usually institutions hide behind the privacy legislation, deflecting uncomfortable questions with the door-closing statement “It’s a personnel matter. We can’t comment.”
So when the university dropped that defence to engage in a smear offensive, a red flag went up.
The reports in the daily newspapers failed to answer the central question: why was Dr. Reynolds fired?
According to Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) executive director James Turk, Reynolds was dismissed because he took positions that disagreed with the WHRA, and represents an encroachment on academic freedom.
“He was the most senior member of the department as far as I know, probably the most experienced, the longest teaching member [ . . . ] nationally known for his work in family medicine,” Turk said.
“The university is complicit in … getting rid of him, even though they’re short of staff,” Turk said.
After Reynolds published a letter about the importance of family medicine in the Winnipeg Free Press, “He got a letter from WRHA that he should have had permission,” Turk said. “No professor should have to get permission to publish a letter in his field.”
…
“This is Family [Doctor] Week in Canada. This week the College of Family Doctors is having its annual meeting, and Reynolds is one of the speakers at it, talking about leadership in family medicine,” Turk said.
Manitoba Liberal leader Jon Gerrard issued a press release decrying the issue as a matter of free speech, and placing the blame squarely on Manitoba’s NDP government.
Reporter Tessa Vanderhart not only left the mainstream reporters eating her dust, she provided us with the clues we needed to find the answers.
There’s an old saying in the news business…the timeline tells the tale. And Tessa filled in that timeline.
Brock Wright, the health authority vice-president said performance reviews concluded Reynolds wasn’t a “team player.” Wright said WRHA evaluations of Reynolds in 2003 and 2004 raised concerns about his ability to work with others.
In announcing the appointment of Dr. Reynolds in 2001, the University of Manitoba noted he had ” received the Ian McWhinney Teaching Award for Excellence in Resident Teaching.” A quick Google search for the award tells us “This award, named in honour of Dr Ian McWhinney, the first Professor and Chair of a Canadian University Department of Family Medicine (University of Western Ontario, 1968 to 1987), is presented to an outstanding family medicine teacher deemed by peers to have made a substantial contribution to family medicine education.”
Obviously Dr. Reynolds played well with others at he University of Western Ontario. His problems with co-workers appear to have surfaced in Winnipeg.
Wright huffed that “a number of people complained Reynolds breached the WRHA’s respectful workplace policy.”
The Black Rod found the WRHA’s respectful workplace policy whose essence is this:
2.2 Harassment – abusive and unwelcome conduct or comments that are inappropriate, demeaning or otherwise offensive behaviour that creates an uncomfortable, hostile and/or intimidating work environment. Types of behaviour that constitute harassment may include, but are not limited to:
2.2.1 Unwelcome remarks, slurs, jokes, taunts, or suggestions that are related to a person’s ancestry, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, source of income, political belief, physical or mental disability;
2.2.2 Unwelcome sexual remarks, invitations, or requests (including persistent, unwanted contact after the end of a relationship);
2.2.3 Displays of sexually explicit, sexist, racist, or other offensive derogatory material;
2.2.4 Written or verbal abuse or threats;
2.2.5 Leering (suggestive staring) or other offensive gestures;
2.2.6 Unwelcome physical contact, such as patting, touching, pinching, hitting;
2.2.7 Patronizing or condescending behaviour;
2.2.8 Humiliating staff in front of co-workers;
2.2.9 Abuse of authority that undermines someone’s performance or threatens her or his career;
2.2.10 Bullying;
2.2.11 Vandalism of personal property; and,
2.2.12 Physical or sexual assault.
Nobody has alleged Dr. Reynolds was accused of pinching his secretaries’ asses or praising them on their mini-skirts. Nobody has claimed he told politically incorrect jokes. “So a priest, a rabbi and a GP go into a bar…” Or that he stole anyone’s lunch money, keyed anyone’s car or bitch-slapped anyone in the washroom. In fact, a quick look at his public writings demonstrates the exact opposite.
He’s written about “Improving interpersonal skills” in the context of doctor-patient interactions.
“Effective communication is the hallmark of effective clinicians. When confrontations arise, it is natural to become defensive. Unfortunately, this usually shuts down the conversation.”
Here’s some of his advice to new doctors on “Coping with family medicine put-downs”
“In crafting responses to put-downs, we should acknowledge the issue but challenge the stereotyping or injustice and promote dialogue.”
So it looks like Brock Wright is talking about sections 2.2.7, 2.2.8, and 2.2.9. That means Dr. Reynolds made some enemies powerful enough to affect his career.
It didn’t take long to identify some suspects.
And with the WHO came the WHEN.
In 2003, a student was failed by the University of Manitoba School of Medicine. The reason? He informed his Obstetrics and Gynecology instructors he would refuse to perform or refer for any abortive procedure. He appealed the denial of his degree three times without success. The matter became public in March, 2004 when his final appeal was denied.
A story in Lifesitenews.com says, “He is being supported by several pro-life doctors in Manitoba, who are concerned about the university’s intolerance.”It’s not hard to imagine that one of those doctors was Dr. Larry Reynolds. Reynolds was a regular contributor to pro-life publications. He sat on the editorial board of Vital Signs, the newsletter of Canadian Physicians for Life. And while still with the University of Western Ontario he was quoted in a story in Vital Signs headlined “No Duty to Refer.”“Dr. Larry Reynolds, Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, has often experienced the tension of counseling a woman requesting an abortion. He explains that as he believes abortion to be harmful to both mother and baby, he cannot participate in any way, including referring the woman to another physician who performs abortions.“Some have argued that this means that we are imposing our beliefs on vulnerable women. Of course, this is not the case. We are maintaining our own moral conscience in refusing to become a mere instrument of someone else’s moral decisions. If we do anything less than this, we allow ourselves to become mere objects. That same argument also promotes the idea that women are helpless victims dependent on physicians to rescue them. Women are strong independent moral beings and deserve to be treated as such, as do physicians.” CJOB Radio News reported on the student’s fight for a degree, including this explanation from the University…
“Dr. Brian Magwood Associate Dean at the Faculty of Medicine told CJOB that university policy states that students are obligated to tell patients about all treatment options which fall within the medical standard of care.”
Who’s Dr. Bryan Magwood? We asked the same question.
Bryan Magwood is the Associate Dean, Undergraduate Medical Education, at the U of M’s Faculty of Medicine. He directs the Medical Humanities Program. A pediatrician, his specialty is Intensive Care Medicine and Clinical Ethics.
He would be a powerful enemy to someone whose ethics are in direct opposition to his.
As the storm clouds of abortion gathered over Dr. Reynolds, he stepped further into the abyss.
The Summer, 2004, issue of Vital Signs published the agenda for the:
Annual National Pro-life Conference
Life 2004 – Alive and Loving It
October 14 – 16
Delta Hotel, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Scheduled to speak between 2 and 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 16, was Dr. Larry Reynolds.
His topic: Issues of Conscience.
If Dr. Reynolds was fighting internal battles within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba, he was engaged in a more public fight war elsewhere.
The WRHA had decided to close the low-risk maternity ward at the Victoria General Hospital. Their argument—the number of deliveries at the Vic was declining and doctors couldn’t keep up their skills.
Reynolds saw the move for what it was, another slap in the face for general practioners. Reynolds has always argued that natural childbirth is exactly what GP’s should be involved in.
This June he was interviewed by the health reporter for Canadian Press where he let loose on the new attitudes to having a baby. (Record high caesarean rate raising concerns among Canada’s obstetricians, Sheryl Ubelacker, Health Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS,
Jun. 25, 2008):
“Dr. Larry Reynolds, a Winnipeg family doctor who has been delivering babies for about 30 years, said the number of primary-care physicians who provide maternity care has been declining for the last two decades, especially in urban centres.
Much of that decline can be blamed on a culture of fear that has grown up around childbirth as it has become increasingly medicalized – affecting not only mothers-to-be but also doctors, nurses and other care providers, he said.
“Pretty well everyone’s afraid to get involved … because you’re really developing a system based on fear – something bad is going to happen. So why would you want to get involved in something that’s risky or where bad things are going to happen?”
Maternity wards used to be places where doctors and nurses enjoyed working, he said, “but they’ve sort of become ‘intensive scare units,’ where everybody is often at a higher level of anxiety.”
Reynolds, a member of the College of Family Physicians of Canada’s maternity and newborn care committee, believes more of his colleagues would embrace maternity care if a shift in societal attitudes were to occur.
A key change would be to stop perceiving birth as a disease to be conquered, “where pregnant women are unexploded bombs and we’re the bomb-disposal unit, moving away from that model to birth as a celebration, birth as a life event with appropriate uncertainties.”
Dr. Reynolds was passionate about the closing of the Victoria Hospital maternity ward. He took his concerns up the ladder, then off the ladder and directly to the Minister of Health.
With that, he made more enemies. Powerful enemies. Enemies who now could ally themselves with his enemies at the University of Manitoba.
Dr. Reynolds lost the battle of Victoria Hospital. The maternity ward was closed in the spring of 2005.
By then, Reynolds knew he was in the eye of a storm.
Tessa Vanderhart filled in the missing pieces in her piece in the Manitoban.
“In 2005, Reynolds was considering whether to seek a second term. He conducted an anonymous survey of his colleagues, who overwhelmingly wanted him to continue. When Reynolds told the dean about the survey, he says they were “less than enthused.” A few days later, a colleague of his saw an advertisement in a newspaper for the position of the head of family medicine at the U of M in a newspaper.”
Then she added something curious.
“Reynolds then took a year-long sabbatical, and when he returned he assumed his position. Medicine appointments continue on unofficial one-year terms.”
He took a year-long sabbatical in his last year of a five year contract? Did he return to finish Year Five? Or was he on year-to-year appointments in ’07 and ’08 both?
Dr. Reynolds could not be dismissed in 2007.
There was a little something that year called a provincial election. Getting rid of the head of family medicine could turn into an election issue.
And the next year?
From Oct. 11 to 13, 2007, Winnipeg was the site of the Annual Scientific Assembly of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. It was their 50th anniversary.
“It is poetic that its golden anniversary will be held a stone’s throw from The Golden Boy, one of Canada’s most famed landmarks, perched atop of Manitoba’s Legislative Building.
Each year, Family Medicine Forum (FMF), with the ASA as its central activity, brings together hundreds of family physicians, residents, medical students, other specialists, and colleagues from other health professions who work with family doctors. With a program planned by CFPC members, FMF has become a highly recommended stop on the continuing professional development highway for Canada’s family physicians,” read the ASA news release.
Imagine welcoming the country’s family doctors celebrating their 50th anniversary and announcing you’ve just fired the province’s chief family doctor.
Uh huh. A one year extension of that contract.
But by Thanksgiving, 2008, Dr. Reynolds’ luck had run out.
The University of Manitoba wanted him gone because of his high profile in the pro-life world. Imagine how galling it was to see his every article ending with “Dr Reynolds is a Professor in and Head of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Correspondence to: Dr J.L. Reynolds, Department of Family Medicine, University of Manitoba.”
There had to be an end to that.
The WRHA wanted him gone because he had committed the cardinal sin, he opposed Kim Il- Sung–oops, sorry, Dr. Brian Postl.
Nobody, but nobody is allowed to embarass Dr. Postl in public. Steps had to be taken.
The confusion over the dismissal of Dr. Larry Reynolds stems from the fact there were two separate attacks — from two separate powerful fiefdoms. The U of M and the WRHA.
Both turned on stifling his right to speak out on issues of conscience and professionalism.
And the way to stifle him was to attack the credibility he has earned among colleagues and students by painting him as having some sort of personality defect, and by removing him from standing in front of medical students as a role model for family medicine.
And this is what passes as ethical treatment of doctors under the NDP in Manitoba, at the University of Manitoba and WRHA which they fund.
In their haste to eliminate Reynolds, they showed their disregard for family physicians, just as he had always warned.
As reported in the Manitoban “the residents he was training are without a professor until the university hires a replacement.”
Dr J Dean Sandham
Dean Faculty of Medicine
University of Manitoba
266 Brodie Centre
Bannatyne Campus
727 McDermot Avenue Winnipeg, MB R3E 3P5
email: dean_sandham@umanitoba.ca
Tel (204) 789-3557 Fax 204-789-3928
Hon. Theresa Oswald
Minister of Health
NDP Provincial Government
Rm. 302 Legislative Building
450 Broadway Avenue
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0V8
e-mail: minhlt@leg.gov.mb.ca
fax: (204) 945-0441
Dr. David T. Barnard
President and Vice-Chancellor
Rm. 202 Administrative Building
The University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
e-mail: president@umanitoba.ca
fax: (204) 275-7925
You may also wish to forward copies of your letters to the following:
Catholic University faculties might be full of socialists, but the Pope begs to disagree:”While it has been rightly emphasized that increasing per capita income cannot be the ultimate goal of political and economic activity, it is still an important means of attaining the objective of the fight against hunger and absolute poverty. Hence, the illusion that a policy of mere redistribution of existing wealth can definitively resolve the problem must be set aside. In a modern economy, the value of assets is utterly dependent on the capacity to generate revenue in the present and the future. Wealth creation therefore becomes an inescapable duty, which must be kept in mind if the fight against material poverty is to be effective in the long term.” [emphasis added]
By the way, he’s no warmonger either, much to the chagrin of the Catholic empire-builders who tried twisting Just War doctrine to justify the Iraq disaster:
“As I have pointed out before, it can happen that ‘immense military expenditure, involving material and human resources and arms, is in fact diverted from development projects for peoples, especially the poorest who are most in need of aid.’” (Source)
The Catholic view on economics has always been the most sensible. Don’t be greedy (unrestrained capitalism), but don’t blame the free market system either (socialism). Instead, have a Christian and charitable view towards your fellow man while respecting the natural order of honorable business.
Duh. It’s simple, but sadly, our society doesn’t want simple. It wants to complicate things and muddy things so much that it does not understand that our current economic crisis is NOT a systematic problem. It’s a moral problem.
LONDON, December 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The chief ethicist for the diocese of London in Ontario Canada recently admitted to LifeSiteNews.com in an interview that St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital in London has been performing “early induction” procedures in cases of diagnosed lethal fetal anomalies for twenty years, under his ethical direction. While Fr. Michael Prieur attempted to justify “early induction” for lethal fetal anomaly as not being abortion, the procedure has been condemned as illicit by the US Bishops’ Doctrinal Committee and called “direct abortion” by the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC).In an “early induction” the mother is induced into labor at a point so early in the pregnancy that even a healthy child would be unable to live outside the womb without specialized intensive care; under such circumstances, a severely disabled child will likely not live more than minutes.At St. Joseph’s “early induction” is used only when the diagnosed fetal disabilities are deemed so severe that the child will likely die within a few months, days or even hours of being born. The St. Joseph’s policy on the matter states: “An early induction may be permitted after viability for a proportionate reason which can include grave physical, psychological or psychiatric considerations.” Psychological justification for inducing labor in such cases is to spare the mother the pain of carrying to term a child that is likely to die shortly after birth anyway. Pro-life groups and church teaching on the issue, however, consider abortions of such children through early induction to be the same as regular abortion (the unjust killing of an unborn child), but with an added discrimination against those with a handicap.
One of the most extreme cases of lethal fetal anomaly is anencephaly – a congenital anomaly characterized by failure of development of the cerebral hemispheres and overlying skull and scalp, exposing the brain stem. Most infants who have anencephaly do not survive for more than a few days after birth. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church does not permit abortion of such infants. A 1996 document on Anencephaly by the Committee on Doctrine of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops explains: “It can never be morally justified directly to cause the death of an innocent person no matter the age or condition of that person.”
In addition to being the chief ethicist at the hospital, Fr. Michael Prieur is a professor of Moral and Sacramental Theology at St. Peter’s Seminary, a position he’s held for over thirty-five years. He is widely known as one of the nation’s foremost defenders of the Winnipeg Statement, a controversial statement of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops which many have deemed a dissent from Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae….
….
Fr. Prieur explained the procedure, saying, “Routinely, when we get them we would meet with ten to fifteen people to make sure of the diagnosis and the prognosis. We always pray. Because this is a very difficult area – what’s called a conflict area. So we always pray. And then the decision is made to have an early induction.”
Fr. Prieur insisted that such procedures were not abortion. “Now it’s not called abortion. We’re not killing the baby. We’re bringing the baby out and allowing the baby to die. That’s a very important distinction,” he told LifeSiteNews.com. When removed from the womb at 21 weeks gestation, however, even a healthy baby could not survive without highly specialized intensive care treatments.
….
This is the same priest who has defended the Winnipeg Statement for the past 40 years. Are we surprised that he’s been giving this kind of advice on abortion? Not really. The only people that seemed to be surprised are the bishops. Now, that is no surprise, we must admit.
And then we wonder why abortion is the untouchable sacrament of Canadian society.
Why this man remains the chief ethicist of a Catholic hospital only demonstrates the thorough rot in Catholic moral teaching in this country.
The bishops of Canada want us to move on from The Winnipeg Statement. You know, like, “look to the future” and “don’t dwell on the past”. That’s a fancy way of saying that they would prefer not to deal with the problems that the Winnipeg Statement has caused and continues to cause.
Those problems will continue to bubble up all over the place unless the Winnipeg Statementis exorcised from our Church, and everyone from our “chief ethicists” to our “chief theologians” and everyone in between is made aware of the horrendous mistake the Winnipeg Statement was.
So far, the Bishops are not interested in the Confession of Sin. They’re more interested in the Cover-Up of Sin – the Sin of the Winnipeg Statement.
But the children of today are not having any part of it. The Good Book says: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Eph.5:11)
By their hand, they gave us the Winnipeg Statement. So by their hand, they must revoke it.
It’s all very simple, your Graces:
1. Face the sin.
2. Repent of the treachery of the Winnipeg Statement.
3. And then clean house.
In that order.
Otherwise, we shall continue to reap the fruit of the rebellion which was planted 40 years ago on Canadian soil.
Just how much more scandal the Faithful will have to endure is a question that God only knows.
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