San Jose Articles: Abortion and the Unborn Child in International Law

Last month a pro-life document created by a team of 31 experts in International Law, international relations, international organizations, public health, science/medicine and government named as The San Jose Articles was presented at the United Nations, the European Parliament, and several other international forums. Due to its relevance I'm publishing here the Articles as well as some background information taken from the San Jose Articles website:

It is now commonplace that people around the world are told there is a new international right to abortion.

Those delivering this message are influential and believable people; UN personnel, human rights lawyers, judges and others.

The assertion they make is false. No UN treaty makes abortion an international human right.

Even so, the assertion is gaining traction around the world.

The San Jose Articles were created to help governments and civil society promote human rights through a proper understanding of how the rights of the unborn child are protected in international law. The articles should be used to counter false assertions, such as the erroneous notion that abortion is a human right.

The purpose of the San Jose Articles is to provide expert testimony that no such right exists and also to demonstrate that the unborn child is already protected in human rights instruments and that governments should begin protecting the unborn child by using international law.

San Jose Articles

ARTICLE 1. As a matter of scientific fact a new human life begins at conception.

ARTICLE 2. Each human life is a continuum that begins at conception and advances in stages until death. Science gives different names to these stages, including zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This does not change the scientific consensus that at all points of development each individual is a living member of the human species.

ARTICLE 3. From conception each unborn child is by nature a human being.

ARTICLE 4. All human beings, as members of the human family, are entitled to recognition of their inherent dignity and to protection of their inalienable human rights.  This is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international instruments.

ARTICLE 5. There exists no right to abortion under international law, either by way of treaty obligation or under customary international law.  No United Nations treaty can accurately be cited as establishing or recognizing a right to abortion.

ARTICLE 6. The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) and other treaty monitoring bodies have directed governments to change their laws on abortion.  These bodies have explicitly or implicitly interpreted the treaties to which they are subject as including a right to abortion.

Treaty monitoring bodies have no authority, either under the treaties that created them or under general international law, to interpret these treaties in ways that create new state obligations or that alter the substance of the treaties. 

Accordingly, any such body that interprets a treaty to include a right to abortion acts beyond its authority and contrary to its mandate. Such ultra vires acts do not create any legal obligations for states parties to the treaty, nor should states accept them as contributing to the formation of new customary international law.

ARTICLE 7. Assertions by international agencies or non-governmental actors that abortion is a human right are false and should be rejected. There is no international legal obligation to provide access to abortion based on any ground, including but not limited to health, privacy or sexual autonomy, or non-discrimination.

ARTICLE 8. Under basic principles of treaty interpretation in international law, consistent with the obligations of good faith and pacta sunt servanda, and in the exercise of their responsibility to defend the lives of their people, states may and should invoke treaty provisions guaranteeing the right to life as encompassing a state responsibility to protect the unborn child from abortion.

ARTICLE 9. Governments and members of society should ensure that national laws and policies protect the human right to life from conception. They should also reject and condemn pressure to adopt laws that legalize or depenalize abortion.

Treaty monitoring bodies, United Nations agencies and officers, regional and national courts, and others should desist from implicit or explicit assertions of a right to abortion based upon international law.

When such false assertions are made, or pressures exerted, member states should demand accountability from the United Nations system.

Providers of development aid should not promote or fund abortions.  They should not make aid conditional on a recipient’s acceptance of abortion.

International maternal and child health care funding and programs should ensure a healthy outcome of pregnancy for both mother and child and should help mothers welcome new life in all circumstances.

We — human rights lawyers and advocates, scholars, elected officials, diplomats, and medical and international policy experts — hereby affirm these Articles.

San José, Costa Rica

March 25, 2011

Living Icons of Jesus through The Holy Spirit

During these days of prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our world and our lives, the Liturgy presents us, once again, with the beautiful reading of St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit.
I have commented before (here) some parts of this text but it is well worth reading and re-reading it. This is a great hymn and a consoling prayer that can give us theme for a quiet, contemplative time in the secret of our inner room.
I'm copying the text from the Liturgy of the Hours:

   

The Work of the Holy Spirit

The titles given to the Holy Spirit must surely stir the soul of anyone who hears them, and make him realise that they speak of nothing less than the supreme Being.

Is he not called:

            the Spirit of God,

               the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,

                  the steadfast Spirit,

                     the guiding Spirit?

But his principal and most personal title is the Holy Spirit.

To the Spirit all creatures turn in their need for sanctification;

all living things seek him according to their ability.

His breath empowers each to achieve its own natural end.

The Spirit is the source of holiness, a spiritual light, and he offers his own light to every mind to help it in its search for truth.

By nature the Spirit is beyond the reach of our mind, but we can know him by his goodness.

The power of the Spirit fills the whole universe, but he gives himself only to those who are worthy, acting in each according to the measure of his faith.

Simple in himself, the Spirit is manifold in his mighty works.

The whole of his being is present to each individual; the whole of his being is present everywhere.

Though shared in by many, he remains unchanged; his self giving is no loss to himself.

Like the sunshine, which permeates all the atmosphere, spreading over land and sea, and yet is enjoyed by each person as though it were for him alone, so the Spirit pours forth his grace in full measure, sufficient for all, and yet is present as though exclusively to everyone who can receive him.

To all creatures that share in him he gives a delight limited only by their own nature, not by his ability to give.

The Spirit raises our hearts to heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress.

He enlightens those who have been cleansed from every stain of sin and makes them spiritual by communion with himself.

As clear, transparent substances become very bright when sunlight falls on them and shine with a new radiance, so also souls in whom the Spirit shines become spiritual themselves and a source of grace for others.

From the Spirit comes

     foreknowledge of the future,

       understanding of the mysteries of faith,

         insight into the hidden meaning of Scripture,

           and other special gifts.

Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we enter into eternal happiness, and abide in God.

Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations – we become God.

From the treatise On the Holy Spirit by Saint Basil the Great, bishop

The last paragraph makes a very bold statement on our destiny and our identity as human beings. We are created with the image and likeness of God in us (Gen 1:26) like a seed that we need to nurture and allow to grow over time in order to bring it to fruition. 

In Jesus the Christ we have the perfectly accomplished human image of God. Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life is One with God, and like Him, we too are called not only to union but to oneness with God through identification and participation in Christ.

Thus our earthly journey is about becoming like Christ, becoming Christ. We are presented in the Gospels with the Model we need to imitate in our lives with our free decision to follow Him every day. But our actions, our efforts are not enough to make us like Him. For this to happen a real transformation has to take place. We call it holiness, which is a divinization not only of our actions but also of our faculties, of our mind and our psyche, of our feelings and desires. 

Jesus fulfills his promise not to leave us orphans (Jn 14:18) by becoming, through the workings of His Spirit, the yeast of our transformation that sculpts in us his own likeness and makes of us his Living Memories, his Living Icons when and where we surrender and entrust the whole of our being to the Divine Artist who is recreating in us the human face of God.

Come Spirit of Jesus!

The Ascension of The Lord

In Canada we are celebrating this Sunday the beautiful feast of the completion of Jesus' journey on earth even beyond the Resurrection, that is the Ascension, Jesus' return to the Father, and the end of the post resurrection "stage of formation" for the Apostles.

Luke describes for us the scene in Acts 1 where Jesus is giving them final instructions:

Do not leave Jerusalem but wait there for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

This sounds promising and exciting to the disciples: finally something is going to happen. They are used to hearing Jesus talk of the Father and all, so this is familiar territory, but they can also feel in the air that there is like a feeling of expectation, of real power about to burst into something big.

In this special moment with Jesus we have the last recorded words addressed to Jesus by the disciples. They ask Him:

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? 

What a revealing question! They have been with Jesus for three years and they still don't have a clue of what is Jesus talking about. They heard but didn't get it. They saw Jesus dead (from the distance) and risen, but still don't get it. It's like they are living in parallel worlds, no matter how long they journey they never meet. The apostles are still thinking of an earthly kingdom where they will have political power.

I think that this is the need that Jesus is addressing in the Ascension: as far as the disciples see Him "there", with the eyes of their bodies, they won't get what  the whole Jesus' thing is about. There has to be a shift in their consciousness, a huge one, and that Jesus will accomplish through the Power of God at work within, the gentle, humble, invisible Holy Spirit on Pentecost day.

They certainly needed it. But not only them. Doesn't this also sound like our communities and our churches today? How many of us today believe that we are mature disciples of Jesus and yet we live out of a consciousness which is a parallel world with Jesus' and the Gospel and closer to that of the apostles in this passage? What are our expectations and desires? What do we labor for with our life? We have probably received the sacrament of confirmation, but have we also entered, with Mary, the womb of prayer that will give birth to the Spirit in our life?

In yesterday's readings we heard (John 16:23-28)

I came from the Father and have come into the world; 

again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.

This is an overview of Jesus' journey, and it's also an overview of our own personal journey as Jesus has shown us with His life. We come from God, we are in the world but not of the world -we belong with God, and we journey back to God. And yet we live and judge and talk and feel as if we come from this earth, belong in this earth, and will remain here forever and ever. This is how we approach events and decisions both personally and socially. We manage to create and live in a parallel world which is not Jesus' or the Kingdom He came to bring.

This is why we need so badly an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us individually, upon the Church, and upon the world. We need to awaken to the consciousness of our real purpose and destiny in God. We have limited time and endless opportunities. God is with us in this journey but we need to feel the need for a change of heart and mind, and open ourselves to the groaning of the Spirit within always yearning to fill us with the humble power of the Kingdom.

During this week before Pentecost, let us unite in prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us, our families and communities, the Church, and our world.

Come Holy Spirit! 

The Spirit of Truth

As Jesus' post Resurrection departure approaches we can sense in the liturgical texts that the focus of attention is slowly shifting -or rather expanding- towards the fulfillment of Jesus promise, the coming of the Spirit.

"If you love me, 

you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father,

and He will give you another Advocate, 

to be with you forever.

This is the Spirit of Truth, 

whom the world cannot receive,

because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.

You know Him, because He abides with you,

and He will be with you." 

(John 14: 15-17)

I don't know how we have managed to make of our Faith a matter of beliefs. Jesus, obviously, presented us with a way of life: "if you love me you will keep my commandments". It is not about having the concepts right. It's about copying the attitudes, the life, the style, the values of Him who said,

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

It is our way of life what will make of us dwellers of the Spirit of Truth -the Spirit of Jesus, and Living Memories, Icons of Christ. 

 TRUTH is not a thing we possess, but a person by whom we must 

allow ourselves to be possessed   

Dialogue And Proclamation 19/V/1991-#49

This Spirit of Truth the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. This is the world we live in, so full of confusion, of lies, of manipulation. But it is not a Creed what makes us to be in the "right" track, rather it is a deep conversion of heart that allows Jesus to take over our lives and live in us. Then He will abide in us and be with us, and we will know the Truth.

"The one who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me;

and the one who loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

(John 14: 21)

  Let us pray in earnest for our personal conversion and for the gift of this revelation of the Spirit of Jesus to us, to the Church, and to the world:

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Fill me with life anew,

               That I may love the things You love,

               And do what You would do.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Until my heart is pure,

               Until with You I have one will,

               To live and to endure.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               My soul with grace refine,

               Until this earthly part of me

               Glows with Your fire divine.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               So shall I never die,

               But live with You the perfect life

               In Your eternity.

                              Amen.          (Liturgy of the Hours -Edwin Hatch -Public Domain)

Witness to Christ's Risen Life

Today's reading at Mass (Acts 14:19-28) treated us to a matter of fact account of the boldness of Paul the Apostle in the face of persecution. While Paul and Barnabas where at Lystra: 

Some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.²⁰ But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

He was left behind as a corpse. This is how badly the stoning went. When the disciples came to pick up the pieces he got up and returned into the city -kind of shaking the dust off as if nothing really had happened. The next day he was in the way again. 

 ²¹ They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch,

Paul not only did not run away or hide himself after being stoned but returned to the very territory of his attackers, back to Lystra, to Iconium and to Antioch. And we are told this itinerary in successive verses, which means that things happened one after the other; we are not talking about going back years later.

²² strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. 

I ask myself today, what kind of hardships am I willing and ready to go through in order to remain true to the faith and the Kingdom. Something to ponder and to pray about.

One of the Intercessions of Morning Prayer read this morning: Christ our Savior ... make us witnesses to your risen life. What a wonderful example of this witnessing we have in the passage of St. Paul quoted before. 

Paul's kind of courage in the face of persecution is a clear witness to the power of Jesus' Resurrection. Paul went to the desert for several years after his conversion and in the struggle of fighting his demons he surrendered his very life and being to God and became, truly, a Living Memory of Jesus, and His Apostle. This is the witness to the Risen Christ that, as Christians, we all are invited to give with our lives today too.

In our troubled times we are, again, getting almost daily news of persecutions and martyrdom, whether in India, Egypt, China or in our own countries. In some places churches are being attacked and burned, and Christians martyred. In other places teachers and doctors are removed from their jobs because they teach that abortion is murder or refuse to perform one. We may not be in those situations but maybe can think of a neighbor or a family member who is in need of a hand. 

Like Paul we too need to shake the dust off our comfortable souls and pray in earnest for our own conversion, for the healing of our blindness that prevents us from seeing Jesus in our brothers and sisters, and for the the grace to come so close to Jesus as to truly become witnesses to His risen life. 

Let us pray for each other as we request the intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, to bring to birth in our lives the passion for God that will make us Living Memories of Jesus, the Risen Christ.

Mary, Help of Christians - Our Lady of She Shan

Today, May 24, is the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, a well known advocation of Mary that spread especially with the Salesians all over the world.

Mary is venerated under this title in the shrine of She Shan, in Shanghai, China. As we know the Church in China is suffering persecution for their faith. Pope Benedict has requested that this be a Day in which the whole Church unites in prayer with and for the Church in China. As an expression of this great concern he has composed a prayer to Our Lady Help of Christians :

"Virgin Most Holy, Mother of the Incarnate Word and our Mother, venerated in the Shrine of Sheshan under the title 

'Help of Christians,'

the entire Church in China looks to you with devout affection. 

We come before you today to implore your protection. 

Look upon the People of God and, with a mother's care,

 guide them along the paths of truth and love, 

so that they may always be 

a leaven of harmonious coexistence among all citizens.

"When you obediently said 'yes' in the house of Nazareth, 

you allowed God's eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb 

and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption. 

You willingly and generously co-operated in that work, 

allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul, 

until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary, 

standing beside your Son, who died that we might live.

"From that moment, you became, in a new way, 

the Mother of all those who receive your Son Jesus in faith 

and choose to follow in His footsteps by taking up His Cross. 

Mother of hope, in the darkness of Holy Saturday 

you journeyed with unfailing trust towards the dawn of Easter. 

Grant that your children may discern at all times, even those that are darkest, 

the signs of God's loving presence.

"Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China, 

who, amid their daily trails, continue to believe, to hope, to love. 

May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world, and of the world to Jesus. 

In the statue overlooking the Shrine you lift your Son on high, 

offering him to the world with open arms in a gesture of love. 

Help Catholics always to be credible witnesses to this love, 

ever clinging to the rock of Peter on which the Church is built. 

Mother of China and all Asia, pray for us, now and for ever. 

Amen!"

The shrine at Sheshan, with its “nine peaks above the clouds” is situated about 35 kilometres from Shanghai city. The mountain, according to legend, gets its name from a hermit named She who centuries ago, lived atop the mountain. 
In 1866, the Church in Shanghai built a hexagonal pavilion and placed within it an altar and a statue of Our Lady. Five years later, the Jesuits built a church at the summit of the mountain and dedicated it to Our Lady Help of Christians, opening it in 1873. 
In 1924, the bishops of China consecrated the nation to Our Lady and following the consecration they made a pilgrimage to Sheshan. Work on a basilica began in 1925 and was completed 10 years later. This church was the first basilica in all of the Far East and it became China’s favourite pilgrimage site. 
During the Cultural Revolution the beautiful bronze statue of Our Lady at the pinnacle of the basilica disappeared and other religious symbols, including the altar and the stained glass window were all virtually destroyed. Pilgrimages to the shrine resumed in 1979. A replica of the bronze statue of Mary holding up the Christ Child was finally re-installed on top of the tower in the year 2000. Some 10,000 believers paid for it. 
Every year since then, pilgrims by the thousands have flocked to Sheshan. In 1990, the first pilgrimage of the decade saw 30,000 Catholics coming to Sheshan for Our Lady’s feast. The elderly and the young made the long steep climb from the foothills of the mountain to the summit as a testimony of their love and devotion to Our Lady. 

In our troubled world today let us join in prayer with Mary, Help of Christians, for the Chinese and for all Christians and believers persecuted for their faith.

Silence

The Father uttered 

only one Word

Which was His Son

This Word speaks always 

in eternal silence

And in silence is to be heard 

by the soul.

St. John of the Cross

Today, the feast of St. John of the Cross, was our monthly Day of Adoration at the little chapel near Emmanuel Hermitage.  


We start the Day with an early celebration of the Eucharist which is followed and prolonged by 12 hours of silent prayer before a Host consecrated during mass. People come in and kneel or sit for a few minutes in the silence; most remain for one hour, some for two hours, or even more.  

This prayer time in shared silence is powerful. 

Jesus shows and hides himself to us in the silence of the Host, in a presence so humble and simple that only faith can see Him. 

Each person present in prayerful silence is a witness to their faith, a witness to the Mystery that hosts us in that sacred space, and also a witness to the mystery that we each one are. 

Shared silence is as powerful as it is fragile; it is born when and where there is not only a silent atmosphere but also when everyone present embraces it by giving and receiving simultaneously the gift of prayerful silence in a form of shared intimacy. 

It would take only one person to break the silence of all others present as we see it often happen in our parishes. This is how fragile it is.

Silence has many dimensions and levels, so many that in a way the whole spiritual journey can be considered a journey into deeper and deeper silence.

The first and most obvious level of silence, and the easiest to reach even though not easy, is external silence, which is the absence of words, of music, and of every sound and noise that can be avoided. 

External silence is an avenue that can put us directly in touch with our inner world, which has its own noises and conversations. To bring those inner voices to quiet is the work of a further and much more challenging level of silence that is, actually, as challenging as rewarding because this takes us to the realm of contemplation. 

In the silence of plans, insights, expectations,  concerns, reflections, judgments, guilts, anxieties  ...  we can let go of everything and dwell in Faith, in a wordless, obscure, and paradoxical knowledge that, when we remove the layers that make up our lives, we come face to Face with Mystery in us and around us. And there we know that we don't know, and it's OK.

This encounter with Silence in the sanctuary of our inner silence may seem useless, a waste of life and time (here is again 'judgment' destroying silence) but in Faith we know that it is the most productive idleness if we allow it to be, if we allow Mystery, the Source of everything, to be and pray in us.

We don't create the Silence that dwells in us, but we can create the doorway to it with our inner silence, by letting go of our personal noise. This is the role of some forms of prayer like centering prayer, which is an exercise on befriending silence and quiet in ourselves by not responding to the noises knocking at the door of our inner sanctuary. Centering prayer is not contemplation, but it is a doorway to contemplation. 

Consecrate yourself to the silence of 

Pure Love.

                                    M. Maria Celeste - Dialog IX      

Divine Feeder

Deer have been frequent visitors during our mild Fall season this year, especially at dusk.


A favorite spot for them is the little shrine of Our Lady of Grace on the north side of the Hermitage where, during summer, they feast with the flowers at her feet.

Now that winter has settled spreading a white garment over the landscape, deer have been around again leaving lots of prints in the snow.

In recent days they haven't come anymore to this spot, probably because they have very little to feast on here and they keep moving on searching for food in other places.


A week ago a friend explained to me that deer need salt, and brought a block of salt to be strategically placed by the shrive.









Apparently deer can smell the salt so this blue brick is meant to lure them into the area where a feeder is also waiting for them with nourishing and favorite seeds - all courtesy of the same good friend.

More than a week later the deer have not yet discovered or touched the salt or the feeder.

And yet I've seen deer prints even inside the carport of the Hermitage where they have taken good care of the few seeds fallen from the bird feeder.

This is puzzling because the prints show that they have been as close as three feet from their own feeder without noticing or using it.

This little feeder story makes me reflect on the Divine Feeder that God has set for us as the nourishment for our Journey home.

At the Incarnation, Emmanuel [God-with-us] is put to lie on a manger [feeder] in Bethlehem [House of Bread].

How, when do we come to the Divine manger to feed our deepest hunger?

How do we pray for our daily Bread during this season of Advent when we prepare anew for the Birth of Christ in us and in the world?

The Memorial of Christ death and resurrection, the Eucharist, is made from a piece of ordinary bread.

Christ is always waiting for us as the Bread of Life on the table of the Eucharist.

We can eat Divine Life in holy communion every time we attend mass.

We can feed ourselves through prayer from the Bread gathered in the tabernacle of our churches or exposed for prayer and adoration.

Jesus is there, day and night, waiting for me, for each one of us, calling me by name, expecting and waiting to give His very Self and Life to me.

How come that I am oblivious to the Divine Feeder?

Where do I go to satisfy my hunger? What do I feed myself with?