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Catholic OB-GYN opened ‘pro-life’ practice

In 13 History on 2012/05/18 at 11:09 AM

WINSTON-SALEM — Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Lewis Lipscomb has felt called to make some substantial changes in how he practices medicine since his conversion to Catholicism in 2004.

Armed with his newfound faith, Lipscomb sought to practice medicine according to the Church’s comprehensive understanding of human sexuality, including “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s encyclical affirming the Church’s teaching on marital love, contraception and sterilization.

Following medical training from the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Neb., Lipscomb stopped prescribing artificial birth control last year, and now he’s taking it a step further this month by starting his own “pro-life” practice in Winston-Salem, specializing in Natural Family Planning for his patients.

“Since I converted to Catholicism in 2004, I have struggled with the Church’s teaching on contraception and sterilization,” Lipscomb said. “‘Safe sex’ in our culture is defined as ‘contracepted’ and ‘covered up.’ As an obstetrician-gynecologist, I was called on every day to provide effective means for women to avoid pregnancy.

“Over the past several years, I began to seek out the truth about human sexuality, and found that our own Catholic Church was really the only entity willing to articulate these truths.”

His new practice, Triad Obstetrics & Gynecology, is a Novant Medical Group practice with a staff of four – and one of the only pro-life OB-GYN practices in North Carolina.

His patients appreciate his Catholic approach to women’s health.

“To practice NFP is to follow God’s loving design for marriage and to live in communion with the doctrine laid out by our Holy Mother Church,” said Leslie Smith. “Having practiced NFP for over 10 years, I feel so blessed now to have an OB-GYN who understands charting. There is no longer a ‘language barrier.’ I look forward to walking into Dr. Lipscomb’s new practice and not encountering advertisements for contraceptives, morning-after pills and sterilizations.”

Katie Knickrehm, another of Lipscomb’s patients, shared her excitement about the new practice:

“The Triad is extremely fortunate to have a pro-life OB-GYN practice that supports Natural Family Planning. Catholics practicing their faith now have somewhere to turn in their own backyard. Personally, NFP has strengthened my own faith and marriage. It is such a blessing that Dr. Lipscomb has made himself available to the pro-life community.”

Lipscomb admits this is a big step and a leap of faith for him and his family, but he is confident about his new practice.

“My objective now is to offer a non-contraceptive approach to women’s health. The tendency of most OB-GYNs is to use contraceptives to treat just about any problem that women suffer. Unfortunately, this approach only masks the symptoms of underlying disease. Women deserve better.

“Using the skills that I learned at the Pope Paul VI Institute, I will, as an NFP Medical Consultant, offer true diagnosis of underlying organic and hormonal abnormalities, and treatments that work cooperatively with a woman’s physiology to truly treat her disease, rather than mask the symptoms,” he added.

Father Lucas Rossi, parochial vicar at St. Leo Church in Winston-Salem, is proud of Lipscomb’s stance.

“Dr. Lipscomb is truly committed to helping women…to giving them the care that so many physicians do not provide – care that reverences a woman’s fertility instead of treating it as disease,” Father Rossi said. “He is an inspiration to all Catholic men, especially to us priests, who have given our lives to serve the Church. I am so thankful that there is a physician who can provide women with sound medical care while at the same time offering them other fertility options that are not sinful or contraceptive in nature. I pray many more physicians and nurses, Catholic and non-Catholic, will be inspired by Dr. Lipscomb’s witness. He is going to need help, since countless women are looking for a physician who is grounded in the Gospel of Life.”

Triad Obstetrics & Gynecology is located at 1900 Hawthorne Road, Suite 614, in Winston-Salem. For details, call 336-277-0340.

— SueAnn Howell, staff writer

Published with permission from the Catholic News Herald

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A must see video by the Nobel Prize winner for the invention of the MRI

In 13 History on 2012/04/20 at 9:11 AM

CONCEPTION TO BIRTH

Image-maker Alexander Tsiaras shares a powerful medical visualization, showing human development from conception to birth and beyond.  Tsairas is the Nobel Prize winner for the invention of the MRI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fKyljukBE70   

Posted with permission from © Creative Commons

 

After you have seen this superb video, please go to the categories of COLLEEN CARROL CAMPBELL  and  MARY SUMMA for more articles related to this topic.
Also, of interest: development of heart; complexity of brain.

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Temperance by Donald DeMarco

In 13 History on 2012/02/17 at 9:11 AM

In January 1936, a meeting took place between Mohandas Gandhi and Margaret Sanger.  The subject of their conversation on that auspicious occasion was contraception.Gandhi had a different understanding of birth control. For him it meant temperance, or self control.Mrs. Sanger was, at that time, the high priestess of the birth control movement. For her, as well as for her legion of followers, “birth control” meant contraception.

During their meeting, Sanger tried to convince Gandhi of the moral legitimacy of contraception. She wanted people to rely on contraceptive technology. Gandhi, who regarded the use of contraception as sinful, wanted people to rely on human virtue. He offered, therefore, a more human and less technological remedy for avoiding unwanted pregnancies. The great Hindu leader proposed a method in which the married couple would abstain from sexual union during the wife’s fertile period.

On Opposite Sides of the World

It may be that no two more utterly disparate world figures of the twentieth century ever met to discuss a moral issue of such critical and global significance. Sanger was a libertine whose religion was pleasure. In a letter to her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, she advised that “for intercourse, I’d say three times a day was about right.” Gandhi, known as Mahatma or “Great Soul,” was an ascetic who dedicated his life completely to truth and peace. He led his people in India to their political independence, and both his example and his philosophy have continued to inspire others who labor for the same goals, including Reverend Martin Luther King jr. and his fight for civil rights.

It is not an exaggeration to compare this meeting between the voluptuary and the ascetic with that between Satan and Christ after the latter had fasted for forty days in the desert. Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1939 and later became honorary president of International Planned Parenthood. Drawing from her second husband’s wealth, she established the Margaret Sanger Research Bureau that financed the development of the birth control pill. Gandhi, a man of God, was entirely self-effacing. He advocated natural family planning and preached that virtuous temperance should be rooted in love. “If love is not the law of our being,” he declared, “the whole fabric of my argument falls to pieces.”

He called the particular form of temperance he practiced and preached, brahmacharya, a Sanskrit word referring to perfect control over the appetites and bodily organs. In 1924, Gandhi stated that, fully and properly understood, temperance, or brahmacharya, “signifies control of all the senses at all times and places in thought, word, and deed.” It includes, yet transcends, sexual restraint. It rules out violence, untruth, hate, and anger. It creates a state of even mindedness that allows for self-transformation in God. Gandhi saw in the use of contraception the potential for man undoing himself. The virtue of temperance or brahmacharya is needed, he felt, for man to be truly himself and to allow God to work through him. Therefore, contraception, which divorces the sexual act from it’s natural consequence, divides man, separating him from the meaning of his own actions. For Gandhi, contraception “simply unmans man”:

I suggest that it is cowardly to refuse to face the consequences of one’s acts. Persons who use contraception will never learn the value of self-restraint. They will not need it. Self-indulgence with contraceptives may prevent the coming of children but will sap the vitality of both men and women, perhaps more of men than of women. It is unmanly to refuse battle with the devil.

Rome Has Also Spoken

Pope Paul VI echoed many of the thoughts that Gandhi expounded concerning the evils of contraception. Gandhi stated that, “As it is, man has sufficiently degraded woman for his lust, and artificial methods, no matter how well-meaning the advocates may be, will stillfurther degrade her.” Pope Paul VI wrote:
The Many Faces of Virtue
by Donald DeMarco

It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conception practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.

Gandhi advised people to use that particular part of temperance called “self-restraint” to achieve “self-transformation.” Pope Paul VI underscored the importance of “self-mastery” in matters of sexuality (cf. Catechism, 2346). They both spoke of the importance of education and the cooperation of external agencies. Neither was hesitant in identifying the use of contraception as an evil and a disorder. Both saw contraception as an enemy to marriage.

Separate Paths

The distinguished British journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, long before he became a Roman Catholic, offered a comment in praise of Humanae Vitae that may be taken as an apt comment on the 1936 discussion between Gandhi and Sanger:

One of the things I admired the Church for so much was Humanae Vitae. I think it’s absolutely right that when a society doesn’t want children, when it’s prepared to accept eroticism unrelated in any way to its purpose, then it’s on the downward path.

The paths of temperance or brahmacharya and eroticism most assuredly do not move in the same direction. As current history has indicated, the former leads to a culture of life, while the latter leads to a culture of death.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Donald DeMarco. “Temperance.” from The Many Faces of Virtue (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2000): 43-46.

This article is reprinted with permission from Emmaus Road Publishing and Donald DeMarco.

THE AUTHOR

Donald DeMarco is adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut and Professor Emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo Ontario. He also continues to work as a corresponding member of the Pontifical Acadmy for Life. Donald DeMarco has written hundreds of articles for various scholarly and popular journals, and is the author of twenty books, including The Heart of Virtue, The Many Faces of Virtue, Virtue’s Alphabet: From Amiability to Zeal andArchitects Of The Culture Of Death. Donald DeMarco is on the Advisory Board of The Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2012 Emmaus Road Publishing

Reprinted with permission from CATHOLIC WORLD on line.

SPECIAL PREVIEW

In 13 History on 2012/02/06 at 5:47 PM

A while back I sent you the article on Charlie Petrizzo and the movie being made of his life.  Many of you were interested in it.  I promised to send you the date of a showing.  Please plan to attend the special showing.

When: February 26 at 7 pm or  Tuesday, February 28 at 7 pm.

Where: St. Matthew’s, 8015 Ballantyne Commons Parkway

No charge

A talk by Charlie will follow.

If you cannot enlarge the print on the flyer, here is what it says:

“He’s beat death twice overcoming incredible challenges, and now former St. Matthew parishioner Charlie Petrizzo, is the focus of th new film: Charlies’s Scars, which chronicles his triumph over tragedy and journey to be healed through helping others.

This power documentary shows how Petrizzo used his own suffering to power his passion for helping special needs children through his ministry PROJECT 2 HEAL, which breeds and trains companion dogs for children with developmental disabilities.

Jury favorite at the Asheville Film Festival and appearing in the Charlotte Film Festival in March, Charlie’s Scars is a witness to the power of faith and God’s plan to work all things for good.

If you have any questions, pleas contact Jan Clemens, Coordinator of the SPRED program,  which is sponsoring this event.   Call: 704-246-7102

EXTRA!! SPECIAL EDITION

In 13 History on 2012/02/06 at 5:46 PM
A movie is being made of the unique life of Charlie Petrizzo.  Some of you might remember him from last year’s class on Fathers and Doctors of the Church. http://www.charliesscars.com
Charlie Petrizzo has faced death twice in his life. Just before his 5th birthday he ran into the street to catch a ball and was hit by a car. The accident almost killed him. It left him in a coma for a while, and then with temporary paralysis. He had to have emergency brain surgery and was in the hospital for months of recovery afterwards.Unfortunately for Charlie, that was not the end of his troubles. His mother said that he was always accident-prone, but she never suspected that when he was only 15 she would be praying for his survival from yet another accident. Charlie was working a summer job painting a house and lost control of an aluminum ladder. It bounced around and hit the power lines, electrocuting him with 36,000 volts of electricity.With 70% of his body was badly burned, Charlie was lucky to survive. Many surgeries later, and months in the hospital, he slowly recovered. Today his injuries still cause many problems in his day-to-day life, but that hasn’t stopped him from achieving more than most people.Despite his health, Charlie worked his way up the corporate ladder to a lofty position with a large national bank. His success was well earned, but he found that he was lacking something important in life. When his mother died he decided to be inspired by the caring example she set in her life and do something that would make a difference in the world instead of his bank account.He left his high-paying job and started a foundation called Project 2 Heal combining two of his passions, dogs and healing. Charlie breeds and trains Labrador Retrievers to work as skilled companion dogs for children with special needs and he donates them to families who need them…at his own expense.Part of his donation efforts involves sending puppies to ICAN, the Indiana Canine Assistance Network for training. ICAN’s dogs are training in prisons, by prisoners. Charlie discovers that one of the prisoners is responsible for killing a 12-year-old girl in Indiana, in one of America’s most gruesome murder cases. Charlie’s whole world is hanging in the balance while he tries to decide if Project 2 Heal should continue donating dogs to the prison for training.

THE MOVIE FLYER CHARLIE’S SCARS

In 13 History on 2012/02/06 at 5:43 PM

If you cannot read the type, go to the enlarged version in the article entitled SPECIAL PREVIEW

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St. Augustine

In 13 History on 2012/02/03 at 9:11 AM


• A while back we celebrated the conversion of the infamous Saul to St. Paul while he was on the road to Damascus. That moment of grace that took place nearly 2000 years ago is perhaps the most famous conversion of all time.

• If St. Paul’s is the most famous conversion of all time, perhaps the second most famous conversion in our Church’s history is that of St. Augustine.

• St. Augustine was born in 354 in the north African city of Tagaste, which is located in modern day Algeria. While his father was a pagan, Augustine’s mother was the ever-patient and long-suffering St. Monica.

• As Augustine was a very bright student, his parents made sure he was well educated. Sadly, Augustine wasn’t drawn to the religion of his mother as a youth. Instead, he ascribed to various philosophies and Gnostic religion (Manichaeism) for guidance in how to live his life.

• Ultimately, Augustine’s moral life suffered – particularly in the area of chastity – and in his late teens he fathered a son out of wedlock.

• St. Augustine eventually left Africa, moved to Rome, and then to Milan, where he came under the influence of the brilliant St. Ambrose. It is under the tutelage of St. Ambrose that Augustine was converted to our Catholic faith at the age of 31.

• In his autobiographical Confessions, St. Augustine records that he was walking and praying in a garden one day when he heard the voice of a small child saying: “tolle et lege” – “take and read,” and so Augustine opened the Scriptures and began reading.

• By providence he happened to turn to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, chapter 13, and he read: “let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”

• And it was at that moment that Augustine, knowing his sinful past, made up his mind to be converted, and soon after he and his son were baptized into our Catholic faith. God’s grace had finally won out, and Augustine went on to become perhaps the most influential theologian in Church history.

• Augustine had lived a life of youthful depravity, but our Lord never gave up on him. And God never gives up on us, no matter how sinful our lives may be. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done wrong in our lives; God’s grace and mercy are always available.

• This is a point that is made clear by our first reading. 2 Chronicles tells us that even though the Israelites practiced all sorts of abominations, the Lord had compassion on His people.

• While God allowed the Israelites to be overthrown and deported to Babylon by their enemies, He eventually delivered them from their captivity and returned them to their rightful land.

• This is because of all of God’s attributes, what stands out is His mercy. And it is of utmost importance that we remember that He is merciful, most especially in the face of our great sinfulness.

• Even when the Lord allows us to suffer for our sins, as he did with the Israelites, He still desires to take us back to Himself. God desires to save us, and He wants us for Himself.

•We also because God is rich in mercy! We rejoice because God desires to save us from our sins! This is exactly what we hear in the readings today.

• Today’s Gospel reading includes the famous verse John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that all who believe in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

• This verse is so important because it’s a summation of the entire Bible. Truly, this verse encapsulates in a nutshell the basic Truth that is conveyed by Sacred Scripture: that God loves us so much that He’ll go to any lengths to save us from our sins.

• And St. Paul teaches us today about the nature of our salvation. Namely, he tells us that salvation is a free gift from God, for we are saved by grace, and grace alone.

• St. Paul goes on to tell us that our works cannot save us. All the same, we cannot ignore doing good works. In fact, St. Paul tells us that as God’s handiwork, we have been created for good works. Good works are the sign of our faith.

• In fact, our cooperation and participation in the work of salvation through prayer and good works is really a matter of allowing God’s grace to take root and work within us. Prayer and good works are the fruits of our faith in God’s saving grace.

• But there is more to our salvation than simply cooperating with God’s grace through good works. Like St. Paul and St. Augustine, we actually must turn away from our sins and be converted!

• The 10 Commandments, which remind us that certain actions are incompatible with Christian living. Sadly, because of the original sin that we inherited from our first parents, we all struggle with concupiscence to some degree.

• Concupiscence is our desire to indulge our lower appetites. It is the yearning for sin that we all struggle with from time to time, and it is why we must constantly seek to turn away from sin. Moreover, in looking to God’s mercy, we must be wary of the sin of presumption.

• The Old Catholic Encyclopedia defines the sin of presumption as: “the condition of a soul which, because of a badly regulated reliance on God’s mercy and power, hopes for salvation without doing anything to deserve it, or for pardon of sins without repenting of them.”

• Presumption is a trick the devil uses to lull us into a false sense of security when it comes to the state of our souls. It is the attitude that entices us to go ahead and sin when faced with a temptation because we know of God’s mercy.

• However, if we are so quick to fall into sin, how truly sorry are we for our sins?

• The point, my friends, is that God is indeed merciful – even more merciful than we can imagine.

• Yet He cannot be fooled. If we are not truly sorry for our sins, we cannot hope to be forgiven of them. God never gives up on us, but we must be contrite if we wish to be forgiven. We have to turn toward God with integrity of heart if we want to be saved by Him!

• So as we make our way through the second half of the Lenten season, let us earnestly seek to be converted, as was St. Augustine. Let us turn toward God and live in the light, leaving behind whatever deeds of darkness we may have committed in the past.

• Let us trust that our Lord, in His great love for us, will bring us to eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Copyright 2009 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Prime Minister Edmund Burke and the Twelve Days of Christmas Purpose

In 13 History on 2012/01/13 at 9:30 PM

Edmund Burke referred to the Elizabethan Penal Laws as the most vicious plan devised by the twisted mind of man for the enslavement of a people.  Whereas in the 18th century he was referring mainly to the deprivation of the Irish of basic human rights (to own property, be educated, have professions, etc…) the also originally applied to English Catholics who until the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 were not permitted to practice their faith openly.

The faith was passed on to the younger generation by an instructive coded song that later became a popular Christmas carol.
Each item mentioned was a code word for the religious truth being conveyed. Furthermore, it was very easy for children to learn and remember.

1. The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.

2. Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.

3. Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.

4. The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

5. The five golden rings recalled the Pentateuch or first five books of the Old Testament.

6. The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

7. Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, Fear of the Lord.

8. The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

9. Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit-Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Mildness, Self-control, Modesty/Chastity

10. The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

11. The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

12. The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles’ Creed.

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Holy Innocents

In 13 History on 2011/12/29 at 9:11 AM

If the Jews had to get Pilate to sentence Jesus to death because only the Romans could impose the death sentence, how was Herod able to slaughter the innocents?

Suetonious wrote that the Romans so feared a prophesied king who would rule the world that when Herod notified the Emperor of that the Magi had come searching for the KING, the Emperor ordered that all babies born in the entire Roman Empire that year were to be put to death.

Herod was the only provincial ruler who did it.  The rest of the empire did not because they considered the law immoral because they believed in the right of the child to live.

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Christmas in Bethlehem, Iraq, Iran, Russia

In 13 History on 2011/12/28 at 9:11 AM

BETHLEHEM The homes of the faithful Christians living in the city of Our Lord’s birth, are marked by a cross and each home has its own manger scene. A lone star on a pole is placed in the center of the square. The Church of the Nativity is festooned with flags and decorations every Christmas, and when the Arab Catholics living in the Jewish state of Israel, go to the church they crowd the church’s doorways and stand on the roof to watch the annual parade. Mounted on Arabian steeds, police lead the parade. In the middle of the procession is a lone rider on a black horse carrying a cross. He is followed by priests and government officials. Down the winding staircase goes the clergy to the grotto where a silver star marks the place where Jesus was born. There they place an ancient effigy of the Christ Child.

IRAQ Christian families gather in their courtyards on Christmas Eve holding lighted candles. A child reads the Nativity narrative from an Arabic Bible. Then a bonfire is lit. A bonfire is also lit inside the church as the men chant an ancient hymn. A procession enters with the bishop carrying a statue of the Holy Infant on a crimson cushion. After a very long liturgy, the bishop confers the “Touch of Peace” on a person who does the same to his neighbor until everyone in the congregation has received this solemn blessing.

IRAN Christmas is known as the Little Feast and it is preceded by fasting from the beginning of the month. These four weeks are reserved for prayer, meditation, church attendance. The fast, which included abstinence from meat, eggs, milk and cheese ends in the early morning and starting at dawn, the faithful begin to arrive in church.

RUSSIA The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates its Christmas following the Julian calendar which places it almost two weeks after that of the Gregorian calendar. For nine centuries it was a solemn and joyous feast until it was prohibited by the atheistic Communist regime in 1917. After 75 years of deprivation, the Russian people were permitted to return to their now incense-filled candle-lit cathedrals surrounded by colorful icons of venerated saints. Now again, on Christmas eve families gather for a special blessed meal. The long fast ends with the appearance of the first evening star. The meal is festive and is referred to as “The Holy Supper” in honor of the coming of the Redeemer. An image of the Christ child in swaddling cloths is placed at the center of the table along with a white candle signifying Christ, the Light of the World, along with a large loaf of bread symbolizing Christ as the Bread of Life. Beginning with the Our Father led by the pater familias who greets them with the words “Christ is Born!” to which all answer “Glorify Him.” Then the mother, with her finger dipped in honey makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of each person saying “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The meal is then eaten followed by the opening of presents. At dawn the family goes to Church and the rest of the day is spent in visiting all neighbors.

Comment: Christmas is not over on the 25th; it is celebrated for 8 days (an octave).