(no subject)

[theweaselking]

So there's a Japanese Catholic hospital.

They don't like abortion, predictably, but they have a relatively sensible take on it for Catholics: rather than just working to ban it, they try to actually address the causes of abortion and came up with a novel solution they hoped would reduce both the number of people who want abortions *and* the number of babies who die from being abandoned.

Their solution: "The Stork's Cradle", a place where unwanted newborns could be dropped off anonymously - allowing parents to have their child adopted, and hopefully reducing the number of abandoned babies left in dangerous places, or where they would not be found in time.

It opened last Thursday.

On the first day of operation, they also had their first drop-off: A toddler, approximately three years old, who was only able to tell the police that he'd come there with "daddy", that he'd taken the train with his daddy to the city and that he really didn't know where home was, or what his daddy's name is.

Comments

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

I hate to rain on your parade here, but having grown up in the Catholic church here in the US, I can tell you that Rome is mostly ignored on the issue of birth control. I also wouldn't categorize mainstream US Catholics as far right. Most tend to be Democrats, with reservations on the whole abortion thing, but you don't see them shooting doctors or bombing clinics. The bishops in this country do not promote extremism, and during one very memorable mass, it was stated very emphatically that Catholicism is not fundamentalism. It was rather amusing to watch, as at that point, I was only going to make mom happy.

[entropymagnet.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. Although I'm personally not a religious person at all, I did grow up in the Catholic church and it's crazy how people love to rail against the Catholics for being strict.

At my old church, most of the Catholics were as liberal as could be. While most of us seem to have a general respect for the backwards-thinking Pope [Jay Pee Squared, not B16], I've NEVER heard any plain ol' American Catholic look to the Vatican for advice. However, when I moved to NC and went to church one morning with a friend in high school, it was suddenly all PHEER TEH WRATHZ OF JEZUZ!

[torrain.livejournal.com]

...from personal experience, with the whole caveat that anecdote is not data, it's not that strict in Canada, either.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

It is a pity that not all churches are not the same. One of my closer friends here is from one of the more "devout families. Her daughter is being sent to catholic school by her parents. The commentary was based on what she is being tought, and what her mother was tought also at the catholic schools she was sent to. That BC was a crime against God and did not work anyway.