archives

Here are some facts about human reproduction.
The best success rate using artificial insemination is 35%.
The data on in vitro fertilization is:
30% to 35% success for women under age 35;
25% for women ages 35 to 37;
15% to 20% for women ages 38 to 40 and
6% to 10% for women over age 40.
Since the above is known via egg and sperm being connected it is reasonable to conclude the same percentage of success of a viable preganancy beginning results when egg and sperm connect via copulation. The reverse of the data establishes the fact that in 65% of the times an egg and sperm connect preganancy does not result.

All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 52

From time to time, Catholicism can be seized with fits of enthusiasm and veer toward one extreme or another. Over the long run, however, its instinct is usually to seek the sane middle, driven by what Pope Benedict XVI has called the Catholic genius for seeking "both/and" solutions to seemingly "either/or" problems.

In Rome this week, a blow was struck for the sane middle on the most vexed issue in the modern relationship between faith and science: the theory of evolution.

The man responsible was Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture and, in a certain sense, heir to Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan as the church's great interlocutor with secular culture. Like Martini (and also, of course, like Benedict XVI), Ravasi is that rare prelate capable of holding his own with the best and the brightest of secular art, philosophy and science, not as an apologist but as a sympathetic partner in dialogue.

He brought that touch to his discussion of evolution on Tuesday.

I have been following the troubles that the Church is going thru in India. Our missions and Churches are under attack by extreme Hindu groups. Following the information that is on the net, mainly Goggle, and it seems that trouble is now going from the east of India to the west. Many attacks are often watched by the police,who offer no protection for the Christians at all. I believe that at the heart of these attacks is the work the missons do with the Untouchables or Dalits, the poorest of the poor. It is the conversion of these poor people to the Christian faith, a conversion that frees the Dalits from the burden of the Caste System, a system that enslaves the Dalits and see to it that there will always be a supply of slaves to do the work that the upper caste members feel is beneath them.