GeezerSue

I'm sure you have found many definitions of the word "catholic." But, I'm pretty sure that the term "universal" is...well...catholic among them. As you may have observed, the etymology of the word is: Middle English catholik, from Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French catholique, from Late Latin catholicus, from Greek katholikos universal, general, from katholou in general, from kata by + holos whole. Please note that I didn't say that "universal" is the ONLY definition...I said it pops up with great regularity.

About the "Catholic" Church and local BC decisions... If we consult a dictionary--or the Catholic Church--for the definition of the word "catholic" we find that "universal" pops up with great regularity. That WAS one of the great claims to fame for the "old" Catholic Church. That church has ONE leader and ONE set of underlying principles although local adaptations have always been allowed on the details of practice...but, of course, not on the underlying principles. But, if what Carlene tells us is accurate (and I believe she is correct on the details), that universality has diminished considerably, and what remains at the most local of levels is apparently not really related AT ALL to the catholic Catholic Church. At issue is nothing less than the infallibility of the Pope. Essentially, the Pope declared the Pope infallible. He can't be wrong. And THEN about a hundred years later, THAT Pope through the adoption of papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae ruled out birth control for all time. That about covers it: 1--The Pope is never wrong; 2--The Pope has declared birth control wrong for all time. If advice that people are hearing locally conflicts with what the Vatican says, then IMHO it takes a lot of fast and fancy logical tap dancing to reconcile the two. One is the official position of the Catholic Church and the other is--at at least at one link in the chain--dishonest. What bothers me the most about this is the wink-wink-nudge-nudge bullshit that underlies the whole thing. A priest is responsible to the Church-Pope through his chain of command. Birth control is the HUGE elephant in the living room of the Catholic Church...and nobody is talking about it because considering changing it is considering questioning the infallibility of the Pope. If people insist on (illogically, but who said religion has anything to do with logic) belonging to an organization the official position of which is that the way they choose to live their lives is essentially wrong and they will suffer eternal damnation, then they are certainly free to do so. But attempting to explain the duplicitous logic of THAT to those who also know the definition of "hypocrisy" will always prove fruitless (pardon the reproductive pun.) Sue :::an atheist veteran who won't join the American Legion because their motto is "For God and Country." For some reason, that decision seemed very simple to me:::

"...with the the full knowledge and consent of the Church?" Are you talking about "Vatican Roulette" Birth Control? Or the pill and other hormonal or barrier products? As described by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles... http://www.archdiocese.la/prayer/sacraments/family/nfp/index.html From this site: http://www.catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp This was reiterated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil" (CCC 2370). "Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means . . . for example, direct sterilization or contraception" (CCC 2399). The Church also has affirmed that the illicitness of contraception is an infallible doctrine: "The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life" (Vademecum for Confessors 2:4, Feb. 12, 1997). And, the above was accompanied by: NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors. Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004 IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827 permission to publish this work is hereby granted. +Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004 I have no doubt that people who consider themselves to be Roman Catholic and priests who deal with those people are in agreement using birth control is not the highway to hell...but, I really, REALLY doubt that anyone has cleared that position through Rome. Which means...if I am correct...that while Catholics in the US are using birth control it is not something the Pope would give the go-ahead for. More info and history available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_contraception#Roman_Catholic_Church

How reassuring it was that those women could have clean abortions. The nine-year old girl in Nicaragua was almost not able to have hers because of all the well-meaning people who wanted to impose their will on her...just as her rapist(s) had. No video of her rape, her battle with the Catholic Church or her abortion is available. But I'm sure glad that she didn't have to go to term. Nine years old. Nine. http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=7549

On another site, I read that the word "shaped" is the operative word here. Meaning that if the fetus, once aborted "looked human" then you had sinned. Interesting criteria.

The Catholic church has been on a political see-saw on this topic for about two thousand years. Subsequent to the Didache...(cut and pasted quote): The Apostolic Constitutions (circa 380 CE) allowed abortion if it was done early enough in pregnancy. But it condemned abortion if the fetus was of human shape and contained a soul: "Thou shalt not slay the child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. For everything that is shaped, and his received a soul from God, if slain, it shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (7:3) St. Augustine (354-430 CE) returned to the Aristotelian Greek Pagan concept of "delayed ensoulment". He wrote that a human soul cannot live in an unformed body. 1 Thus, early in pregnancy, an abortion is not murder because no soul is destroyed (or, more accurately, only a vegetable or animal soul is terminated). In the 17th century, the concept of "simultaneous animation." gained acceptance within the medical and church communities. 2 This is the belief that an embryo acquires a soul at the time of conception, not at 40 or 80 days into gestation as the church had previously taught. Pope Pius IX dropped the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus" in 1869. Canon law was revised in 1917 and 1983 to refer simply to "the fetus." The church penalty for abortions at any stage of pregnancy was, and remains, excommunication. A Papal decree in 1884 prohibited craniotomies. This is an operation that kills the fetus by dismantling its skull. The procedure was occasionally needed in order to save the life of the pregnant woman. In 1886, a second decree extended the prohibition to all operations that directly killed the fetus, even if done to save the woman's life. The effects of these decrees would often be the death of both the woman and the fetus. These rules are still in place today, although they are ignored by most North American physicians -- both Catholic and non-Catholic. The Roman Catholic church has occasionally "held funeral and burial services" for aborted fetuses. 3 However, this has not been the general rule. Embryos and pre-viable fetus have not usually been considered full persons to the extent of being worthy of a formal requiem mass or a formal burial service. more here: http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_hist_c.htm And there's: http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/abortion.html Interestingly enough, in this country, Catholic women constitute a disproportionately large percentage of women having abortions. If people REALLY want to "do God's work" perhaps they could stop condeming their sisters.

Because once born, it's a baby, not a fetus. I don't know why some people find that point so difficult. It's a legal thing...not a moral thing. If someone's chuch says it's a kid from the time the daddy gets a stiffy, so be it. But that's for THEIR personal moral beliefs, not legal issues to be shoved down everyone else's belief system.

I wore my uniform to defend our CONSTITUTION...which, interestingly enough, protects YOUR right to make decisions in YOUR life, but NOT in--for example--MY life. A baby is a baby when it's born. Until then, it's a fetus. (Well, assuming we get past the zygote and embryo stages.) I'm sorry that your friend was not emotionally equipped to be able to handle the consequences of--apparently--several of her actions. But abortion has been going on FOREVER (in the early days of Christianity, the Catholic Church had guidelines as to how far into a pregnancy an abortion could occur...different guideline for male and female fetuses because they thought they had THAT resolved) and most women don't get nuts. Of course, if she was hanging with people who kept telling her she was a baby-killer, that might have had SOME bearing on her mental health. Maybe it's good that she moved on. BTW, this is a good time to mention genealogy. Look back in your family history. If--prior to commercially available birth control--you didn't have a great-grandma popping out new babies every three years (with time outs for wars and all), it MIGHT be time to give some real grown-up consideration as to how that was possible. My grandmothers were born at the dawn of the 20th century. One of them had a baby every two years for 24 years. The other had two kids. Guess which one was "upwardly mobile" and had access to doctors who found it necessary to do a "scraping" (that's what they called it) every now and again!! The reality is that abortions have ALWAYS happened and will always happen...we can make them safe or not. After all, what it boils down to for me is...who decides? WHO DECIDES what's best for me? Ultimately, legally or illegally, I will. People can punish me afterward, but I'll make my own decisions.

That spelling would have confused many native Englisn/English-only speakers. I "speak" two major phonetic alphabets--one from a little outfit called "the U.S. Army," and the other from a major law enforcement agency--and your alphabet was neither of those. So even with my familiarity with using phonetic alphabets, I'd have stalled-out in the translation. My sister, who speaks English only and worked in telphone customer service her entire career, would not have understood any more than the woman on the phone...unless you had said, "M as in Michael" and so on. Some people with heavy accents are more fluent in English than many native English speakers. I know words in Spanish that my native-Spanish speaking mother--who has lost almost all Spanish proficiency over the last 75+ years--has never learned. I have lived in other countries and other cultures and I have hoped that those to whom I was speaking in THEIR language might cut me a little slack. Since I travel the planet without total proficiency in the language of every country I visit, I hope for patience, understanding and wisdom from those I encounter...and I try to reciprocate. It has worked fairly well so far. I'm sorry that you are having such difficulty maneuvering in the world as it is. No matter how much you protest, chances are, it will continue to be more like it is and less like it was. That's the nature of change.

I spoke of people "who stand around outside the clinics telling other people what to do and killing doctors." They are what they are...I believe the word I used was "morons." Works for me.

Ya know..until it's a frog...it ISN'T a frog; it's a pollywog. And until it's a baby, it just ain't a baby. It may be a POTENTIAL person...a HOPE of a person...a DREAM of a person...but it is NOT a person until, you know, it's a person. (The IRS--a branch of our government--will explain what is child is to anyone who tries to claim a "potential child" on his or her taxes.) Abortion is not funny. The morons who stand around outside the clinics telling other people what to do and killing doctors (who ARE people) come closer to tragedy than comedy. I've BEEN to clinic defenses. Those idiots try to attack people coming in for things totally unrelated to pregnancy. They are a scourge on humanity. They are no different that the Taliban who blew up the Buddist statues because they didn't mesh with Taliban beliefs. No different at all. I didn't wear MY uniform to protect the rights of those who would dictate that I should live by their standards.

More and more, the term "pro-life" is the translation for "I have no sense of humor and I know what's best for YOU." ~~~~~~~ Hey, TruBlueSue... I had the same MOS, different era. DLI? (Back when I went there is was DLIWC because there was one on the East Coast as well.) My name tag ended in "RU." GeezerSue

Jacqui, I'm happy for those for whom the LapBand has--so far, anyway--caused few or no problems, but that group is not a miniscule as you might believe...nor are the problems as minor as one might assume from reading your post. A young woman on another board I frequent, who was LUCKY because her surgeon was Rumbaut, just spent 9.5 hours in surgery and 11 days in the hospital having her band revised to an RnY. If it took Rumbaut, one of the most experienced band surgeons on the planet, 9.5 hours to fix something...it was a mess. a mess that MANY other doctors would not have had the experience to repair. I never said that mental health was not important. If someone is unhappy being obese, that's just another good reason to do something about it. But if anyone is having any wls in hopes that "the other kids" will like them better...they need help. There ARE people who have surgery for all kinds of reasons...and doctors who, for their own reasons, actually perform surgery on people with bizarre reasons...like the doctor in Scotland who amputated the healthy limbs of people who just felt they'd be happier with only one leg. But to tell the truth, I've encountered several people who have learned AFTER having wls (or various types) and losing substantial weight, that not fitting in and not being accepted and all of that was NEVER about their weight.

FYI..ON AVERAGE...a person with a band loses 50-60% of excess weight after two years. Call it 55%. Let's take a 5'7" person who weighs 210, a BMI of about 33. She gains up to 225 to have a BMI of about 35. A high-end normal weight for this person would be about 158. Her excess weight would currently be +/- 52 pounds. After gaining weight to qualify for surgery, her excess weight would be +/- 67 pounds. Her projected average weight loss after two years would be +/- 37 pounds and her two-years-out weight would be +/- 188...about 22 pounds less than her starting point. So, two years, give or take, thousands of dollars and a HOST of potential complications for 22 pounds.

But...you are intentionally gaining weight to "be sick enough" to qualify for wls. Okay.

Of course not...but the stuff they have "worked on" isn't killing them. Morbid obesity KILLS people. If your nose is unattractive and you want a nose job, go for it. If your boobs are so big they are causing you backaches, by all means, have a reduction. In those cases you are fixing something that is, in your view, "wrong." But that's not what your posts are about. You have been saying that EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE HEALTHY you are going to have surgery to please others. Again, OF COURSE NOT. But, if you believe that in spite of being morbidly obese, you are perfectly healthy and happy and just want to have surgery to "fit in" better with "society's" values and change your looks to make you more "acceptable" to others, then YES...you need a counselor. Again, there is no such thing as a healthy morbidly obese person. That's like saying "a healthy but dying from fat person." I don't know your particulars. Maybe you are NOT MO. Maybe you are just a few pounds overweight and it's getting in the way of your idea of having fun. WLS is a good idea, but you really need to be doing this for a good reason because it's a BIG job...and, unless you have a REALLY good reason, you'll get tired of the routine. Good luck, Sue

You know...not to hurt any feelings here...but I would NEVER have any surgery to "fit in" with what "society" approves of or doesn't approve of...and I fear there may be a DSM-IV diagnosis code for those who do. If anyone is planning on having surgery for any reason other than improved health, YOU NEED COUNSELING!!! That is because if you qualify for surgery it is probably because you are morbidly obese...that is "diseased" obesity..."sickly" obesity, "pathological" obesity, etc. If you are so deeply in denial that you don't realize that your obesity is killing you--at the same time your insurance company will cover the procedure--you really need to get some PROFESSIONAL HELP in making an honest appraisal of your current health status. None of this was mean to be mean...but it was meant to bring home a point. If your obesity is NOT killing you, there is no logical or moral or medical reason to have any surgery.

I don't care what kind of antics any two consenting adults--even elected adults--engage in behind closed doors, as long as I'm not married to either of them. However, I got a real kick out of the Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker debacles because THOSE duds tried to tell everyone else how to live.

There are others who speak whatever it is that Dubya speaks? Wow!! I guess I misunderestimated him.

Just because they are Black does not make them experts on the topic. And I'm not proposing it be "taught," any more than I'd propose that Gullah be taught in public schools. But there is an enormous difference between a dialect and slang. Many miss that point. Too bad some Black leaders think that ANY dialect of English, or any language, is garbage. Ignorance defined, I guess. I don't speak Pidgin English, either. But it communicates. And whether I understand it or not, it is of value to millions. If I work in a community of people who communicate via Pidgin English, I'd be wise to acknowledge the effectiveness of that mode of communication and a fool to try to tell them to stop talking that way. I might even be a HERO if I can help them add standard English to their repertoire...but I won't get there by telling them that the language that they and millions of others use is garbage. They know better.

BTW...anyone se habla Gullah? Also not slang... http://www.bcgov.net/bftlib/gullah.htm#Examples

"Ebonics" is not "slang" spoken by young black kids. We call THAT something else; we call it "slang spoken by young black kids." "Ebonics," among other things, utilizes a different grammar. It is consistent. It doesn't change with fads and mean one thing this week and something else next week. If you don't enjoy reading about grammar, this will probably not thrill you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonics The link keeps fizzling out. Well, go to wiki and search on "Ebonics."

"...how POOR..." It modifies "the quality of writing," which makes it an adjective. When the "ly" is added, it becomes an adverb, which cannot be used here. I'm just sayin'...

The first week or two is more likely dehydration--sometimes even combined with swelling from surgery--than actual weight loss. It really shouldn't even be counted.

OKAY...I got confused. I thought folks were calling the sleeve a "MGB." I lknow NOTHING about the MGB...the stuff I wrote was in refence to the sleeve...aka "the top half of the DS." Sorry.