Abortion and Psychosis, some clarification on my part

Below is a direct copy past from an email exchange with a friend.

From: FRIENDTo: KELLY
Subject: RE: Grey Area Sticky Abortion Question
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 20:28:41 +0800

Hey there Kelly,

Good on you for looking out for this girl, I’m sure she appreciates your support and listening ear right now.

 There were many questions that came to me while I was reading this scenario (see my red below). Ultimately, I think this girl needs professional help in two areas. One area is ethical advice, which really ought to go to someone more experienced and qualified. I think bioethics in the Archdiocese is Fr Joe Parkinson’s responsibility? Bronia at the RLO could also advise you on who could help. I’d recommend you get in touch with either of these asap.

 The other area of professional help this girl needs is counselling with regards to coming to terms with her pregnancy. I think she may be thinking that abortion is the least bad of the options she is facing. Pregnancy Assistance might be able to help. Bronia at the RLO might also be able to advise you what to do on this. This girl may also need counselling in general for just being in this complicated situation.

 How does this sit with you?

 I’ll keep this matter in my prayers.

 God bless,

FRIEND

  

I've a friend, whom I met in hospital, who is allergic to oestrogen. Which is unfortunate because she has XX Chromosomes, as I do. Her reaction to estrogen day to day is severe depressive episodes.
We met in hospital because she'd started taking oestrogen based contraception and it had triggered a suicidal psychosis. If her fiance hadn't unexpectedly come home two hours early to find her unusually calm, she would be dead. That was around 2x her normal day-to-day levels.

This friend is now worried that she's pregnant. Oestrogen levels by the end of pregnancy are, apparently, about 1000x that of day-to-day levels. She's extremely resourceful and, during her psychoses, can be very deceptive about how bad things actually are. At anything more that 2x her normal levels of oestrogen, she will find a way to kill herself. If she is pregnant then wont her oestrogen levels have already risen significantly? They go up relatively quick I thought.

The Church teaches, through the principle of double effect, that she can continue and increase treatment for her mental illness during pregnancy, even to the detriment of the child. Sounds like the principle of double effect, but before definitively concluding on this difficult situation I’d get another opinion from someone more experienced in ethics. Has this girl already seen an ethicist at the hospital? She could take some oestrogen-blocking therapy, even if it kills the child.

The child could, however, survive to or past around 20 weeks when both pain and viability-outside-the-womb become a possibility I’m not sure if you could block oestrogen AND get to 20 weeks pregnant – more likely to miscarry early in the pregnancy if the hormones are not at healthy levels? If the child is born, at whatever stage after that, there is a high likelihood of terrible suffering for them. It is unlikely that the child will survive long after birth, if at all. What does she mean by that? Is it a health issue or something else… 

She could, of course, not continue or receive more treatment. That decision would depend on her mental health doctors wouldn’t it? I don’t know a lot about her psychotic-suicidal reaction to oestrogen. What if she just went under 24hr surveillance? Her husband could take leave and care for her?

Meanwhile, even a week of high levels of estrogen - much more for if it's 40 weeks - and this friend is likely dead; almost certainly.

Her question to me: How is killing the embryo, foetus, child slowly, possible over 9 or 10 months, more ethical than a direct abortion? My intention in either case is to stop in estrogen and the result in either case is the thing dying?

I’m not sure how the child could die slowly over 9 or 10 months. If she blocks the oestrogen then I can’t see how she could bring the child to full term.

If the child was born, is this girl thinking of killing the child?

I appreciate her lose-lose situation, but we both know abortion leads to further suffering.

She needs counselling with regard to her difficult situation. Pregnancy Assistance?

My question to you: How should I answer?


EDIT to clarify: I use allergy somewhat allegorically.
She has BPD and has a psychotic-suicidal reaction to estrogen. 
My assumptions, the 'givens,' are based on my close knowledge of her and her condition.
Also, yes, she could continue with BPD therapy; the resulting death or injuries to the child are of the same likelihood.
And, she uses a utilitarian prism for her moral compass:
"Greatest good for the greatest number," while believing that "There is some suffering worse than death."

*   ***   ***   ***   *

From: KELLY
Sent: Tuesday, 27 August 2013 10:30 PM
To: FRIEND
Subject: RE: Grey Area Sticky Abortion Question

Thank you, FRIEND. You raise some great questions.

I've been in contact with both RLO and PA.
I'm hoping to hear back from both tomorrow.

Alas, this woman is suspicious of anyone clearly on either 'side' of the 'abortion fence,' so to speak.
This means that the likelihood of her speaking to someone other than me or Fr Giles (whom she met while we were in hospital) is quite low.

Now, to your questions:

If she is pregnant then wont her oestrogen levels have already risen significantly? They go up relatively quick I thought.Yes. That's why she's worried that she's pregnant. It's been about a week and she's noticed a huge increase in her depression and the first symptoms of psychosis.

Sounds like the principle of double effect, but before definitively concluding on this difficult situation I’d get another opinion from someone more experienced in ethics. Has this girl already seen an ethicist at the hospital?This is part of my reason for contacting RLO.

Although we probably could have asked to have seen an ethicist in hospital, it's not really high on a mental-health patients list-of-professionals-to-see.

  I’m not sure if you could block oestrogen AND get to 20 weeks pregnant – more likely to miscarry early in the pregnancy if the hormones are not at healthy levels?Probably can't.

But she also has the option of continuing her current medication without taking the oestrogen blocker-thing which would severely harm the child.

What does she mean by that? Is it a health issue or something else… Health of the child in regard to the effects of the medication/s she'd be taking during pregnancy.

 That decision would depend on her mental health doctors wouldn’t it? I don’t know a lot about her psychotic-suicidal reaction to oestrogen. What if she just went under 24hr surveillance? Her husband could take leave and care for her?  Well, kind of. Under the Mental Health Act, you have the right to refuse treatment.

The only type of supervision that might work is being in a Locked Ward for the duration of the oestrogen spike.

She'd probably have to be literally tied down: it's the curse of being a high functioning mental health patient that, once you've decided that you need to die, nothing but physically preventing you from acting will stop you. 

 I’m not sure how the child could die slowly over 9 or 10 months. If she blocks the oestrogen then I can’t see how she could bring the child to full term.If the child was born, is this girl thinking of killing the child?I appreciate her lose-lose situation, but we both know abortion leads to further suffering. She needs counselling with regard to her difficult situation. Pregnancy Assistance?

 As above, probably not. 9 months in the womb, maybe a month outside.She has not intention of killing a live-born child.It does, but so does several months of phychosis. 

I will continue trying to chase (up or down) any help I can get for her.

 Thank you, again, for your help and - more especially - for your prayers.

 You remain in my prayers, too.

 -Kelly

Abortion and Psychosis, A question

I've a friend, whom I met in hospital, who is allergic to oestrogen. Which is unfortunate because she has XX Chromosomes, as I do. Her reaction to estrogen day to day is severe depressive episodes.
We met in hospital because she'd started taking oestrogen based contraception and it had triggered a suicidal psychosis. If her fiance hadn't unexpectedly come home two hours early to find her unusually calm, she would be dead. That was around 2x her normal day-to-day levels.

This friend is now worried that she's pregnant. Oestrogen levels by the end of pregnancy are, apparently, about 1000x that of day-to-day levels. She's extremely resourceful and, during her psychoses, can be very deceptive about how bad things actually are. At anything more that 2x her normal levels of oestrogen, she will find a way to kill herself.

The Church teaches, through the principle of double effect, that she can continue and increase treatment for her mental illness during pregnancy, even to the detriment of the child. She could take some oestrogen-blocking therapy, even if it kills the child.
The child could, however, survive to or past around 20 weeks when both pain and viability-outside-the-womb become a possibility. If the child is born, at whatever stage after that, there is a high likelihood of terrible suffering for them. It is unlikely that the child will survive long after birth, if at all.

She could, of course, not continue or receive more treatment.

Meanwhile, even a week of high levels of estrogen - much more for if it's 40 weeks - and this friend is likely dead; almost certainly.

Her question to me: How is killing the embryo, foetus, child slowly, possible over 9 or 10 months, more ethical than a direct abortion? My intention in either case is to stop in estrogen and the result in either case is the thing dying?

My question to you: How should I answer?



EDIT to clarify:
 I use allergy somewhat allegorically.
She has BPD and has a psychotic-suicidal reaction to estrogen. 
My assumptions, the 'givens,' are based on my close knowledge of her and her condition.
Also, yes, she could continue with BPD therapy; the resulting death or injuries to the child are of the same likelihood.
And, she uses a utilitarian prism for her moral compass:
"Greatest good for the greatest number," while believing that "There is some suffering worse than death."

Coping With Suicide: 6 Months On

Yeah,
So,
Six Months, hey?

How's that going?

Well, it's suprising that i ti s.

I'm not coping really well
But I'm aware that I'm looking like I'm coping a fair bit better than, say, 3 months ago.

I can't even think about death or suicide or dad or parents or fathers without tears coming to my eyes.
So I don't think about those things,
and if they come up, I switch off.

I have trigger words
and I'm re-learning how to avoid them.

Like, my medication is helping
Helping me to ignore it all again
Helping me to get up in the morning
Helping me to interact with people again

But
But I'm not healthy
Not even close.

I'm still kinda suicidal.
If it wasn't for the Faith telling me that it's a bad idea
and
If it wasn't for the not wanting to put my brother through another suicide
then I think I would

I don't want to, though
I just am having such a hard time seeing the way through

Sure, I know - at least intellectually - that God provides the way through all things
and that
Even though I walk in the shadows of the valley of death
No evil [ought] I fear
I'm told that He
is there with [His] crook and [His] staff to protect me
But I feel so unprotected

It's such a good thing that this Holy Faith is not about feelings
"Stop feeling; just do it,"
my spiritual director told me.
Which is what I'm doing

Which is what's keeping me alive

Palm Sunday

They Crucified Him: Stations of the Cross

This series is not my own work, but all taken from Rev Robert Nash, S.J.'s reflections on the Stations of the Cross: They Crucified Him. I will post one Station a day in these final days before (and concluding on) Good Friday. Here is his Introduction.

***   ***   ***

They Crucified Him

The three words on our title page are Saint Luke’s terse summary of the events of Our Lord’s Sacred Passion.

Who “they” were, and what “crucifying” implied, and what manner of Man they outraged in crucifying “Him,” — these ideas are capable of wide expansion, they have formed the subject-matter of innumerable meditations, and they are most aptly illustrated in the fourteen scenes known familiarly to us as “the stations.” Catholics, thank God, nourish their love of Our Lord and deepen their hatred of sin, by frequently “making” those stations, so it may prove helpful in these pages to set forth thoughts which are easily suggested to the mind, and affections which readily arise in the heart, as one follows Christ and Mary through these events taking place on the way to Calvary.

Coping with Suicide: I'm Not Well

I've been avoiding going to the doctor's for years.
Each time I go, I'm told that my symptoms are in my head, either directly or implicitly.

They've been right. I've not wanted to hear it and they've not offered the support that I needed.
Oh, sure, it's not a GP's job to counsel. It is, however, their job to refer.

This Friday, I gritted my teeth and went to a GP recommended by the great people at Pregnancy Assistance and by Sr Bernadette MG. Mum's been wanting me to have a 'once over' 'full check-up' for a while now, and my counselor (well, my previous counselor) suggested I go to the GP and specifically mention that I was exhibiting some of the signs of depression. So much for getting back to normal.

Anyway, so I went. Not without trepidation. Turns out I was late. Very late. She saw me anyway, and for an extended period of time. She didn't push me out the door and she recognised that, although it was all in my head, that didn't (doesn't!) mean that it can't be treated.

Sure, she put me on anti-depressants straight away; they aren't what they used to be. I won't be on them forever, and they're a low, therapeutic dose. She's also writing me a referral to go and talk to a psychiatrist. Hopefully the psychiatrist will give me a diagnosis and allow me to talk. I find myself wanting to do that a lot. To talk. But I want to talk to someone who will get it or, at least, someone who won't fob me off part way through. "There is not limit," Glenn Morrison tells me, "to the number of times we need to tell our story," and I want to tell mine again. Or, rather, I want to tell it all out in full.

In the mean time, my prayer-life has been sucky and I was feeling bad about that, but realised that it's not my fault. Then, this morning, I watched There Be Dragons and, this evening, read some reflections of the Stations of the Cross. From each of these sources, there is something that I wish to record here:

From There Be Dragons:

"...I came to accept that [God] can be terrible... I fight Him with Love."

And from the reflections of the Stations:

"In a painful illness, it may be (no, it IS) more pleasing to Him to take with gratitude the remedy or relief offered rather than bear the pain with a bad grace. It is quite possible that when depression weighs down upon one, the right course is to shake it off by curtailing one’s penitential acts and one’s prayer and allowing oneself more time for lawful recreation." (Rev Robert Nash, S.J x)

Both of these have been some kind of minor relief.

I told Tyson the other day that my difficulty in not reacting on an almost entirely cognitive level is disrupting my relationship with God, while at the same time saving it. I've been trying to put together an entire post on this thought but haven't got far. I will post what I have so far underneath. It is by no means complete, but I'm not sure I'm in a fit state to be finishing it at the moment.


Mental illness is strange. It can be just as debilitating as a physical illness but it is so easy to forget that it's there. It's easy for friends and acquaintances to forget, assuming they know; it's easy for family to forget; it's easy for the person who's unwell to forget.

It's easy for me to forget what it's like to be well. I don't remember, but I've not yet entirely forgotten. Being mentally well is not a memory that I hold; however, I'm sure that it exists and that I'll remember when I am again.


I am relying on prayers right now. There is so much more still ahead of me, so much more still to come. Yet, though I walk in this vale of darkness, no evil will I fear.  Pray for me, and I will, as I can, pray for you too.

Sede Vacante

Young Papa Bene
From Totus Tuus
See Also: I Love You Papa Bene

From Erin

at her Random Ramblings

Do you hear the Catholics sing?
Singing a song of holy men
It is the music of a Church who

will have a new Pope again

Benedict 16 was great

And we will miss him very much

But even in his retirement, he’ll pray for us

 

Cardinal Arinze on Redemptionis Sacramentum

Coping with Suicide: To Life, To Life, L’chiam!

God would like us to be joyful, even when our hearts lie panting on the floor.

I thank Him who has given me strength for this, Christ Jesus our Lord.

Not long after I posted the other day, I quickly ran out of energy. My major accomplishment that day was hanging out my washing. I got very tired from moving my backpack from the dining room to my room and summarily sat at the kitchen table for a few hours. It was strange to me because it happened so quickly. Well, I read a couple of poems, fell asleep for a few hours and was beyond lethargic for the remainder of the day.

Yesterday, although nothing greatly physical was accomplished don my part, I did actually get a lot more done. The, talking with Eliza was all I could manage for hours: I even found reading exhausting. Yesterday, however, I arranged some music that I’m hoping my ensemble will play this year - maybe even for Catholic Performing Arts - as well as reading a couple of chapters of G K Chesterton’s St Francis of Assisi, not only eating but preparing food, showering, writing up some stuff for 40 Days for Life and a few smaller tasks.

What does this have to do with the title and above quotes? I’m not sure; I’m getting to that.

In my first Coping with Suicide post, I finished with a quote from Fr Rolheiser which I will requote here:

Knowing all of this however, doesn't necessarily take away our pain (and anger) at losing someone to suicide. Faith and understanding aren't meant to take our pain away but to give us hope, vision, and support as we walk within it. 

Knowing all what? That God loves me, my family, my friends and my dad. That, as the Catechism says, “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance.” (2283) Knowing all that doesn’t remove the pain and anger and confusion and irritability; it doesn’t help me sleep; it doesn’t help me have the energy to do things, nor to eat. Knowing all that doesn’t help me feel less fragile; doesn’t help me not to crumble under the weight of this cross, so to speak.

However, the Faith does help me get back up again.

You see, the image of an emotional rollercoaster wasn’t particularly helpful when it was first suggested to me a few weeks ago by a well meaning lecturer at the university I used to attend. To be honest, it’s still on a helpful image. My emotions haven’t been roller-coasting: my reactions to them have. Oh, sure, I go through various bouts of being more irritable or angry - yes, they are different - but I have had more or less the same emotions since the 4th or 5th of December last year. My reactions, however, vary just like a rollercoaster. It is not just up and down; there is a much broader depth and deeper breadth to them than that. This is because my emotions are deeper and broader.

Oh, holy Faith!

I can not imagine how it would be possible to cope without the Holy Faith of the Apostles! How, without such great examples of patient suffering, could one manage to bear their own cross of whatever size‽

How, without the sublime help of the One Whose Heart was pierce by a Sword, could I hope to bear patiently this wound inflicted by the death of a family member as She was? She watched His suffering and was helpless to prevent His Death. So, too, did She watch the Death of St Joseph. Ah, how, without the comfort of knowing my God watched His earthly father die could I face my own father’s death? How could I, without the loving support of the Holy Family, reconcile myself to the brokenness of my family; broken before and now, in some way, shattered?

The Jewish people have historically been good at many things. The Scriptures tell us that their ability to mourn far out strips the ability of a post-modern Westerner to do so. Where we would hear a piece of bad news and, typically, react somewhere between stoicism and silently weeping - or, at the most extreme, briefly crying out - (my reaction to the news about dad’s death was closer to that of the Stoic), the Jews of the Scriptures with tear their clothes, wail and weep over all types of ill news. It is easy, then, to understand why, when compared to the Jewish culture, we have an impoverished vocabulary with which to speak about suffering, mourning and grief.

When our hearts lie panting on the floor.

Here is a reaction to long suffering or to grief. One’s heart, ripped from the body by extreme emotion, is cast on the floor where it has room and space to beat, although at the risk of it being trampled underfoot by our post-modern carelessness. Having no room in the chest because it is so swollen with emotion, the heart bursts forth; the struggle of keeping inside and, most simply, of the grief causes the heart to feel worn out. Just as a dog after a long chase will lay down and pant, so too does the heart. Exhausted, worn thin, vulnerable for it’s own protection, the heart - like the dog - can do nothing other than lie on the ground, gasping for breath and trying to return to normality. However, unlike the dog, our hearts don’t quickly recover from the need to be laying, panting on the floor. In a sense, the dog is merely exhausted; the heart, however, is out of it’s natural environment and experiencing extreme pain, and does not recover quickly from this. That is why all the Very Helpful Information says that grief can last weeks, months or years.

Yet, through all this, God would like us to be joyful! Now, if ‘joy’ and ‘happiness’ are synonymous, it is clear that it is impossible to be joyful even when our hearts lie panting on the floor. However, they are not the same thing. Joy, St Paul tells us, is a fruit of the Spirit: happiness does not make the list.

It is times like these that Minties just don’t cut it, and that people often lose their faith in Christ. I argue, with G K Chesterton, that this is because they don’t have a sufficiently wide enough point of view. In St Francis of Assisi he writes: Men will believe because they will not broaden their minds. As a matter of individual belief, I should of course express it by saying they are not sufficiently catholic to the Catholic. I am not saying that in the face of a truly catholic - and, therefore, Catholic - perspective, all suffering and pain melts away into nothing but just the opposite. It is only with that Catholic world view that suffering makes sense. It is only with the Cross that our crosses have meaning; it is only because of His unjust trials that our trails (of whatever justice) make sense; it is only within the Communion of Saints that our Communion with our suffering God can be realised.

During a 2009 General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI said that, “The saints are true interpreters of Sacred Scripture. In the experience of their lives the saints have verified the truth of the Gospel; thus they introduce us into a knowledge and understanding of the Gospel.” This is the very same Gospel that tells us to take up out cross on follow Christ our Lord and God. It is our Faith in His Redemptive Paschal Mystery that gives us “hope, vision and support” and it is these that give us joy. Therefore, St Paul writes to the Corinthians, “we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” The Saints, the Apostles and Martyrs, the entire Church, works together for our joy.

It is easy to let our trials overcome us and our burdens overwhelm us. It is easy when everything seems to be collapsing around us or when we seem to be collapsing, to give up and to lose our peace and joy. Yet it is important that you “do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset [because] true progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice,” as St Francis de Sales says. In fact, as he also says,

The devil takes advantage of sadness to tempt the good, striving to make them sorrowful in their virtue as he strives to make the wicked rejoice in their sins, and as he can only tempt us to evil by making it appear attractive, so he can only tempt us away from what is good by making it appear unattractive. He delights to see us sad and despondent because he is such himself for all eternity and wishes everyone to be as he is.
It is so easy to despair while grieving, but our Faith teaches us that there is no reason to lose hope, neither for our selves nor for those who have died, even if by suicide.

I thank Him who has given me strength for this, Christ Jesus our Lord.

More from Let Me Be Catholic

“How was Mass?”

 

Which made me think:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let Me Be Catholic

is a cool new (for me) Tumblr that you should go check out.

Posts. For example:

When I tell people what I was like before my conversion

And

When I go to a Church and the doors are locked 

 And

Why be a martyr?

 

 

This is our Faith

This is the Faith of the Church.
We are proud to profess it through Christ, our Lord.

"To the glory of God most holy and of our Lord Jesus Christ, trusting in the aid of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, for the profit and edification of the Church, in the name of all the pastors and all the faithful, we now pronounce this profession of faith, in full spiritual communion with you all, beloved brothers and sons.

We believe in one only God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, creator of things visible such as this world in which our transient life passes, of things invisible such as the pure spirits which are also called angels,³ and creator in each man of his spiritual and immortal soul.

We believe that this only God is absolutely one in His infinitely holy essence as also in all His perfections, in His omnipotence, His infinite knowledge, His providence, His will and His love. He is He who is, as He revealed to Moses,⁴ and He is love, as the apostle John teaches us:⁵ so that these two names, being and love, express ineffably the same divine reality of Him who has wished to make Himself known to us, and who, "dwelling in light inaccessible"⁶ is in Himself above every name, above every thing and above every created intellect. God alone can give us right and full knowledge of this reality by revealing Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in whose eternal life we are by grace called to share, here below in the obscurity of faith and after death in eternal light. The mutual bonds which eternally constitute the Three Persons, who are each one and the same divine being, are the blessed inmost life of God thrice holy, infinitely beyond all that we can conceive in human measure.⁷ We give thanks, however, to the divine goodness that very many believers can testify with us before men to the unity of God, even though they know not the mystery of the most holy Trinity.

We believe then in the Father who eternally begets the Son, in the Son, the Word of God, who is eternally begotten; in the Holy Spirit, the uncreated Person who proceeds from the Father and the Son as their eternal love. Thus in the Three Divine Persons, coaeternae sibi et coaequales,⁸ the life and beatitude of God perfectly one super-abound and are consummated in the supreme excellence and glory proper to uncreated being, and always "there should be venerated unity in the Trinity and Trinity in the unity."⁹

We believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God. He is the Eternal Word, born of the Father before time began, and one in substance with the Father, homoousios to Patri,¹⁰ and through Him all things were made. He was incarnate of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, and was made man: equal therefore to the Father according to His divinity, and inferior to the Father according to His humanity;¹¹ and Himself one, not by some impossible confusion of His natures, but by the unity of His person.¹²
He dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. He proclaimed and established the Kingdom of God and made us know in Himself the Father. He gave us His new commandment to love one another as He loved us. He taught us the way of the beatitudes of the Gospel: poverty in spirit, meekness, suffering borne with patience, thirst after justice, mercy, purity of heart, will for peace, persecution suffered for justice sake. Under Pontius Pilate He suffered—the Lamb of God bearing on Himself the sins of the world, and He died for us on the cross, saving us by His redeeming blood. He was buried, and, of His own power, rose on the third day, raising us by His resurrection to that sharing in the divine life which is the life of grace. He ascended to heaven, and He will come again, this time in glory, to judge the living and the dead: each according to his merits—those who have responded to the love and piety of God going to eternal life, those who have refused them to the end going to the fire that is not extinguished.

And His Kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is Lord, and Giver of life, who is adored and glorified together with the Father and the Son. He spoke to us by the prophets; He was sent by Christ after His resurrection and His ascension to the Father; He illuminates, vivifies, protects and guides the Church; He purifies the Church's members if they do not shun His grace. His action, which penetrates to the inmost of the soul, enables man to respond to the call of Jesus: Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect (Mt. 5:48).

We believe that Mary is the Mother, who remained ever a Virgin, of the Incarnate Word, our God and Savior Jesus Christ,¹³ and that by reason of this singular election, she was, in consideration of the merits of her Son, redeemed in a more eminent manner,¹⁴ preserved from all stain of original sin¹⁵ and filled with the gift of grace more than all other creatures.¹⁶
Joined by a close and indissoluble bond to the Mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption,¹⁷ the Blessed Virgin, the Immaculate, was at the end of her earthly life raised body and soul to heavenly glory¹⁸ and likened to her risen Son in anticipation of the future lot of all the just; and we believe that the Blessed Mother of God, the New Eve, Mother of the Church,¹⁹ continues in heaven her maternal role with regard to Christ's members, cooperating with the birth and growth of divine life in the souls of the redeemed.²⁰

We believe that in Adam all have sinned, which means that the original offense committed by him caused human nature, common to all men, to fall to a state in which it bears the consequences of that offense, and which is not the state in which it was at first in our first parents—established as they were in holiness and justice, and in which man knew neither evil nor death. It is human nature so fallen stripped of the grace that clothed it, injured in its own natural powers and subjected to the dominion of death, that is transmitted to all men, and it is in this sense that every man is born in sin. We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin, is transmitted with human nature, "not by imitation, but by propagation" and that it is thus "proper to everyone."²¹

We believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the sacrifice of the cross redeemed us from original sin and all the personal sins committed by each one of us, so that, in accordance with the word of the apostle, "where sin abounded grace did more abound."²²

We believe in one Baptism instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Baptism should be administered even to little children who have not yet been able to be guilty of any personal sin, in order that, though born deprived of supernatural grace, they may be reborn "of water and the Holy Spirit" to the divine life in Christ Jesus.²³

We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church built by Jesus Christ on that rock which is Peter. She is the Mystical Body of Christ; at the same time a visible society instituted with hierarchical organs, and a spiritual community; the Church on earth, the pilgrim People of God here below, and the Church filled with heavenly blessings; the germ and the first fruits of the Kingdom of God, through which the work and the sufferings of Redemption are continued throughout human history, and which looks for its perfect accomplishment beyond time in glory.²⁴ In the course of time, the Lord Jesus forms His Church by means of the sacraments emanating from His plenitude.²⁵ By these she makes her members participants in the Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, in the grace of the Holy Spirit who gives her life and movement.²⁶ She is therefore holy, though she has sinners in her bosom, because she herself has no other life but that of grace: it is by living by her life that her members are sanctified; it is by removing themselves from her life that they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for these offenses, of which she has the power to heal her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Heiress of the divine promises and daughter of Abraham according to the Spirit, through that Israel whose scriptures she lovingly guards, and whose patriarchs and prophets she venerates; founded upon the apostles and handing on from century to century their ever-living word and their powers as pastors in the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him; perpetually assisted by the Holy Spirit, she has the charge of guarding, teaching, explaining and spreading the Truth which God revealed in a then veiled manner by the prophets, and fully by the Lord Jesus. We believe all that is contained in the word of God written or handed down, and that the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed, whether by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal magisterium.²⁷ We believe in the infallibility enjoyed by the successor of Peter when he teaches ex cathedra as pastor and teacher of all the faithful,²⁸ and which is assured also to the episcopal body when it exercises with him the supreme magisterium.²⁹

We believe that the Church founded by Jesus Christ and for which He prayed is indefectibly one in faith, worship and the bond of hierarchical communion. In the bosom of this Church, the rich variety of liturgical rites and the legitimate diversity of theological and spiritual heritages and special disciplines, far from injuring her unity, make it more manifest.³⁰

Recognizing also the existence, outside the organism of the Church of Christ of numerous elements of truth and sanctification which belong to her as her own and tend to Catholic unity,³¹ and believing in the action of the Holy Spirit who stirs up in the heart of the disciples of Christ love of this unity,³² we entertain the hope that the Christians who are not yet in the full communion of the one only Church will one day be reunited in one flock with one only shepherd.

We believe that the Church is necessary for salvation, because Christ, who is the sole mediator and way of salvation, renders Himself present for us in His body which is the Church.³³ But the divine design of salvation embraces all men, and those who without fault on their part do not know the Gospel of Christ and His Church, but seek God sincerely, and under the influence of grace endeavor to do His will as recognized through the promptings of their conscience, they, in a number known only to God, can obtain salvation.³⁴
We believe that the Mass, celebrated by the priest representing the person of Christ by virtue of the power received through the Sacrament of Orders, and offered by him in the name of Christ and the members of His Mystical Body, is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars. We believe that as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into His body and His blood which were to be offered for us on the cross, likewise the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the body and blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven, and we believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real and substantial presence.³⁵
Christ cannot be thus present in this sacrament except by the change into His body of the reality itself of the bread and the change into His blood of the reality itself of the wine, leaving unchanged only the properties of the bread and wine which our senses perceive. This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation. Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine,³⁶ as the Lord willed it, in order to give Himself to us as food and to associate us with the unity of His Mystical Body.³⁷

The unique and indivisible existence of the Lord glorious in heaven is not multiplied, but is rendered present by the sacrament in the many places on earth where Mass is celebrated. And this existence remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament which is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of each of our churches. And it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore in the blessed Host which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word whom they cannot see, and who, without leaving heaven, is made present before us.
We confess that the Kingdom of God begun here below in the Church of Christ is not of this world whose form is passing, and that its proper growth cannot be confounded with the progress of civilization, of science or of human technology, but that it consists in an ever more profound knowledge of the unfathomable riches of Christ, an ever stronger hope in eternal blessings, an ever more ardent response to the love of God, and an ever more generous bestowal of grace and holiness among men. But it is this same love which induces the Church to concern herself constantly about the true temporal welfare of men. Without ceasing to recall to her children that they have not here a lasting dwelling, she also urges them to contribute, each according to his vocation and his means, to the welfare of their earthly city, to promote justice, peace and brotherhood among men, to give their aid freely to their brothers, especially to the poorest and most unfortunate. The deep solicitude of the Church, the Spouse of Christ, for the needs of men, for their joys and hopes, their griefs and efforts, is therefore nothing other than her great desire to be present to them, in order to illuminate them with the light of Christ and to gather them all in Him, their only Savior. This solicitude can never mean that the Church conform herself to the things of this world, or that she lessen the ardor of her expectation of her Lord and of the eternal Kingdom.

We believe in the life eternal. We believe that the souls of all those who die in the grace of Christ—whether they must still be purified in purgatory, or whether from the moment they leave their bodies Jesus takes them to paradise as He did for the Good Thief—are the People of God in the eternity beyond death, which will be finally conquered on the day of the Resurrection when these souls will be reunited with their bodies.
We believe that the multitude of those gathered around Jesus and Mary in paradise forms the Church of Heaven, where in eternal beatitude they see God as He is,³⁸ and where they also, in different degrees, are associated with the holy angels in the divine rule exercised by Christ in glory, interceding for us and helping our weakness by their brotherly care.³⁹

We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are attaining their purification, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion the merciful love of God and His saints is ever listening to our prayers, as Jesus told us: Ask and you will receive.⁴⁰

Thus it is with faith and in hope that we look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Blessed be God Thrice Holy. Amen."

Pope Paul VI

June 30, 1968

***

 The Creedo of the People of God was proclaimed at the close of the Year of Faith, celebrated for the 19th Centenary of the martyrdom of Sts Peter and Paul.

  ***

³ Cf Dz.-Sch. 3002.
⁴ Cf Ep.3:14.
⁵ Cf 1 Jn. 4:8.
⁶ Cf 1 Tim. 6:16.
⁷ Cf Dz.-Sch. 804.
⁸ Cf Dz.-Sch. 75.
⁹ Cf. ibid.
¹⁰ Cf Dz.-Sch. 150.
¹¹ Cf Dz.-Sch.76.
¹² Cf Ibid.
¹³ Cf Dz.-Sch. 251-252.
¹⁴ Cf Lumen Gentium, 53.
¹⁵ Cf Dz.-Sch. 2803.
¹⁶ Cf Lumen Gentium, 53.
¹⁷ Cf Lumen Gentium, 53, 58, 61.
¹⁸ Cf Dz.-Sch. 3903.
¹⁹ Cf Lumen Gentium, 53, 58, 61, 63; Cf Paul VI, Alloc. for the Closing of the Third Session of the Second Vatican Council: AAS LVI [1964] 1016; Cf. Exhort. Apost. Signum Magnum, Introd.
²⁰ Cf Lumen Gentium, 62; cf Paul VI, Exhort. Apost. Signum Magnum, p 1, n. 1.
²¹ Cf Dz.-Sch. 1513.
²² Cf Rom. 5:20.
²³ Cf Dz.-Sch. 1514.
²⁴ Cf. Lumen Gentium, 8, 5.
²⁵ Cf Lumen Gentium, 7, 11.
²⁶ Cf Sacrosanctum Concilium, 5, 6; cf Lumen Gentium, 7, 12, 50.
²⁷ Cf Dz.-Sch. 3011.
²⁸ Cf Dz.-Sch. 3074.
²⁹ Cf Lumen Gentium, 25.
³⁰ Cf. Lumen Gentium, 23; cf Orientalium Ecclesiarum 2, 3, 5, 6.
³¹ Cf Lumen Gentium, 8.
³² Cf Lumen Gentium, 15.
³³ Cf Lumen Gentium, 14.
³⁴ Cf Lumen Gentium, 16.
³⁵ Cf Dz.-Sch. 1651.
³⁶ Cf Dz.-Sch. 1642,1651-1654; Paul VI, Enc. Mysterium Fidei.
³⁷ Cf S.Th.,111,73,3.
³⁸ Cf 1 Jn. 3:2; Dz.-Sch. 1000.
³⁹ Cf Lumen Gentium, 49.
⁴⁰ Cf Lk. 10:9-10; Jn. 16:24.

Parramatta Cathedral

For those who have heard me talk about Parramatta Cathedral, here are some pictures I took last year on my phone.

Front of the 'Old Cathedral'

Blessed Sacrament Chapel & Cathedral Tabernacle (inside the 'Old Cathedral')

Main Cathedral from Blessed Sacrament Chapel

Main Cathedral

Main Cathedral from seat in pew close to glass 'main doors'

Chapel of Our Lady, Help of Christians

Statue of Our Lady

Artwork on 'Reconciliation Room'

'Chapel of Reparation'
(Sacred Heart)