One thing I’ve learned about the Internet is that you never really know anything about the Internet. Predicting what will do well and what will kick up an absolute storm is a bit of a mystery. I was reminded of that this week when one video got a lot more attention than I expected.
Holding Firm Against Surrogacy
Surrogacy is immoral. While it may be undertaken with good intentions, there is never a situation in which it could be conceived as natural or good. This may not be a popular opinion, but it’s an important one to hold firm on.
The ONLY Unforgivable Sin
God’s mercy is unbounded. This is difficult for our world to understand. Like Jonah, it wants vengeance and does not accept conversion. According to scripture, there is only one unforgivable sin, and it is not murder, child abuse, or genocide. All of these things, with a contrite heart, can be forgiven.
Our Best Conversation Yet?
Blowing up in a different sense was last week’s discussion on Minor Characters. I posted it to last week’s newsletter, but I wanted to post it again because I thin it’s just really great. If you haven’t watched our show yet, this would be a great one to start with.
From the Vault
Some videos just deserve to be watched every once in a while. This one, “Can Church Doctrine Ever Change” is a great one to revisit on a regular basis.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Peace and good,
Fr. Casey
Breaking In The Habit 
Top of the morning to you Father.
Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer
Hi Fr. Casey. I discovered you about a year ago and I very much enjoy your videos. They are very thought provoking. I am a 69 year old cradle Catholic; I attended parochial grade school for eight years in the 1960’s. The surrogacy video rocked my world and I am almost ashamed to ask you this but I need your help.It was my understanding that when the Holy Spirit over shadowed Mary, the baby was started in her womb but I am now interpreting that Mary’s egg was fertilized by the power of the Holy Spirit. Is that correct? We were never taught this concept in school; nothing like this would have been explained in the 1960’s. I have been pondering this for several days now and it is really bothering me. Would you be so kind to explain this to me in frank detail? I thank you for your time. Blessings, Donna Rowley Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
Hey father Casey your output is pretty much, to a video, fantastic – informative, engaging, relevant oftentimes very funny. You don’t realise what a positive and even transformative effect you have on people’s lives by the grace of the Lord. As far as online Catholic material goes, I put you second, only to Bible in Year. (I haven’t listened to Catechism in Year, though). Bishop Barron is awesome too but a bit too much to the right, politically. (Just keep that between me and you.). Full marks to Father Mike Schmitz too. He sometimes stays away from the current so so hot political topics, but you really take them head on. We appreciate and respect that. Father Josh Johnson is great, but we do not see that much of him. He is like the trailer to your favourite movies but you want to see the movie too. No criticism at all to Bishop or Fathers. Listen, let me teach you something and then let me pick your brain.
Lesson first. What you have to understand is that “haters are going hate”. It does not matter what you say, some people (haters) will always find fault and criticise; however uncontroversial and truthful your statement. Haters hate. It is just their temperament. If a hater sees something, their first reflex is to find fault and criticise. They cannot help it. It is their personality. This is totally unintelligible to you, because you are totally not like that. It is just like some people do not like superhero movies (FYI I love superhero movies). Why do some people love and others despise the super-hero genre – who knows…Haters are the same, it is just in their constitution or preferences. To give a complement for them is like asking Superman to eat a Kryptonite cake. – they simply can’t do it, they just choke. However finding fault is natural, easy and even enjoyable. The more you tell a hater: “look be objective”, the more they go into hateration mode. Haters should and can change, like all of us with our faults; but like all of us, they also need to see it first. Until then “haters are going to hate”.
Now teach me. I totally agree with you that surrogacy is not God’s plan. But we have a “problem”. Embryos already exist for couples who cannot have children because the women cannot complete a pregnancy. What do we do with these embryos’ lives? Do we let them die or can they be implanted in to women who are keen to carry the child, so they can be born, have a childhood and grow-up. I know that you cannot sin for good to result. Is it the lesser to two evils to implant these already alive/created embryos than to let them die? Maybe it is not sin to let them die and that is their natural life as embryos extra-utero. It just seems.. you know…What’s the answer?
Let me take side-step for a second because you mention this. You may not know this, but womb transplants are a rare but current practice in medicine. In the current model, post-menopausal women have their womb transplanted into women who cannot have children. The recipient of the transplant then conceives by IVF – even though they still have their own ovaries and eggs. They have to take loads of immune-suppressants so that their body does not reject the donor womb. Finally after the child is born, the recipient woman has a hysterectomy. This is because without this the body would reject the transplanted womb, without lifelong immune-suppressive medication, which can be harmful. So they think it is safer to do a hysterectomy. Maybe I am totally missing the mark: I think that a womb transplant would be acceptable if taken from a post-menopausal women, who can no longer have children and there is a natural/not IVF conception by the recipient and no hysterectomy for the recipient woman at the end…Do you agree? I know you are Franciscan not a Dominican – so hyper-hypotheticals may not be your thing…Also wont hold you to it. Just wandering what you think…
Fast forward to the future 2035 you are Pope/Cardinal Casey Cole (3C, 3 Cubed whatever)…Consider now a woman has an abortion and the only way that child can survive is to be implanted in another women. Both the woman having the abortion and the recipient woman agree. Would that be allowed by the Church? What if then after the birth the original mother wanted the child? Basically can you save a life by surrogacy so a child can be born, have a childhood and grow-up? Is it so fundamentally so wrong that no justification is permissible? IVF, yes, is not God’s plan because you are separating procreation from the act, but once the embryo/foetus is here, it almost a fait accompli…Can you implant in another mother if the only other option is that that embryo/foetus dies….
I know these cases are so, so hypothetical. Mike Schmitz said something interesting that procreation is so holy because we share in a basic/allegorical way God’s creative ability and anything related to it should be treated with the utmost reverence. He was not talking about surrogacy but I guess anything akin to surrogacy is to dishonour what God has made holy.
Reply or make a video if you have time. There is no real need of course. The main reason of my message to make sure you realise what good work you are doing and also for me to bounce some ideas for me. I know it can be a distraction: musing on hypotheticals that do not apply to me; and then overlooking/forgetting sins in my life and/or where I can improve and give better witness – it interesting though…
Listen take care. We all love your work, keep it up. Keep talking. You are saying all the right things. We always need voices like yours in the world. God is good.
Faith
Father Casey, thank you so much for your recent videos. I recall being part of a church small group over a decade ago in which the topic of surrogacy came up (one of the women in the group was acting in that capacity) and I was shocked to see that my wife and I were the only ones in the group for whom the moral justification of surrogacy was even in question.
Regarding that “unforgivable sin” as an Ordained Elder in the Free Methodist Church, I have often taught people that the only sin which is unforgivable is the sin for which we do not seek forgiveness. The fact that one’s Holy Spirit infused conscience convicts them would seem to prove that they (we) are not beyond the ability to seek God’s forgiveness.
Though I remain Ordained in my denomination, my eldest son and I have frequented our local Catholic Church more often recently, especially one significant days of the Church calendar – the Christmas Eve Mass we attended as well as the Ash Wednesday service we took part in were especially meaningful to us both.
Thank you again for your ministry, -Kasey