Europe Slding Down the Slippery Slope at Top Speed

[Fitz]

Augustine:

Don’t listen to the media. No need to be ashamed an American anywhere in the world. She’ll be fine and perhaps change some people’s minds about Americans.

God bless.

Thanks for the encouragement. I was sort of trying to talk her into Ireland or England after the Madrid bomgings.

 

[Marie]

Fitz:

Marie I wondered the same thing because everyone in my family has gone to Europe for school or work or vacation and I can’t Imagine the 15% being accurate. Do you think this is scewed or made up? Urban legend? Just like: Americans don’t speak any foreign languages when I have a very high percentage of people I know that do? Just wondering.

yep! And as to Step’s pronouncement that few people from Nebraska travel overseas…

I am from Nebraska, and while I don’t live there now, my whole family does. Many of the same family members mentioned in my above post who TRAVEL abroad, live abroad etc. I think Step lives in a very narrow tunnel or her family does.

 

[Lisa_N]

Zoot:

On whom does the obligation fall to keep alive the individual who cannot make the decision? For how long?

In the reference to “keep alive” you refer to heroic measures that are not required by the Church or Catholic ethicists.

Lisa N

 

[Lisa_N]

Fergal:

The only thing that keeps me very hopeful about Europe is the flag. It was designed as a Catholic emblem by a devoted Catholic. Each and every time I see the flag I see Our Blessed Lady’s smile in its folds. Blue with a circle of 12 stars!! Revelation??? Is the heel ready and waiting to crush the head??? Our Mother is watching, I believe, and ever ready to catch us before we hit the bottom.

Fergel, please tell me Ireland doesn’t have a version of the ACLU. They have made it a crusade to remove ANY religious reference from any public building, symbol, etc.

Lisa N

 

[Shoshana]

HagiaSophia:

My favorite travel advice is the paperwork we rec’d prior to our arrival in a nation (which I shall not name) don’t buy shoes and if you become ill, go to another nation for medical care. We laughed so hard.

France.

 

[HagiaSophia]

Shoshana:

France.

No France has lousy health care but fabulous shoes.

 

[Lance]

Steph700:

Well, speaking as someone who once upon a time was a conservative American sick in Europe, they took care of me just fine. And as far as vacations go, yes it may be wise to stay home in the States right now… but only because the exchange rate is so bad!

Give me a break!!

Europe is great, I love all the travels I have had here. My only wish is that more than 15% of the American population would have a passport- and use it!!

Steph, You may have been sick in Europe but from you numerous other posts I somehow doubt that you were ever a conservative. You are right Americans should travel more but the countries of western Europe who don’t like us should not get our travel dollars. There is South and Central America, Eastern Europe, Northern Ireland, Asia, Australia, hundreds of Island nations in the Caribbean and South Pacific and even the UK and Spain who are much more deserving of our travel dollars than France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and most of the rest of the EU. Western Europe is no longer the center of civilization, art and culture. There are many place more interesting and fun to visit. Americans are more welcome there also.

 

[HagiaSophia]

Lisa N:

I spoke to a Catholic ethicist regarding “heroic measures.”

Some time back we were discussing palliatives for pain in chronically ill patients - it appears the Vatican has had the subject in mind also:

From
Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care

Restating its opposition to any form of euthanasia, the Vatican yesterday said that painkilling drugs should be used in order to help dying patients live out their days to a “natural end”.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, Pope John Paul II’s spokesperson on health care issues, was responding to a question about living wills at a news conference.

“We must preserve life from its beginning to its natural end,” he said. “Life doesn’t belong to us. Life belongs to God.”

The Vatican is holding a conference this week to promote the use of painkillers for chronic pain suffers and terminally ill patients.

Vatican officials stressed that church teaching holds that use of “excessive measures” to keep a patient alive are not required.

“When you prolong in a painful and useless way suffering which is not responding [to treatment], those are extraordinary means,” the cardinal said.

 

[Lance]

maklavan:

My comment about the USA was a joke, meaning that the USA went down the slope long ago! Seriously though, we should not generalise. There are many people in Europe who do not agree with permissive politics, just as there are many people in the USA who do not agree with the indiscriminate bombing in Iraq, little children losing limbs, the killing of mentally incompetent people by lethal injection, the torture and sexual humiliation of prisoners, widespread pornography on the Internet,bestiality, child abuse,especially paedophilia drug abuseThese are the fruits of North American culture, but they are the work of individuals. It does not make sense to condemn the whole of Europe, or the whole of the USA, for the troubles of our time.

“Before you look for the splinter in your brother’s eye; look for the log in your own eye.”

Looks like you should take you own advice!