The Pope & The Internet

By Janet Brazill

Pope Francis has astounded many with his humble acceptance of his role as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Now he has made a stunning announcement, calling the Internet a "gift from God." This shows that he values knowledge. If his followers would just accept that statement and study this wonderful storehouse of information, it could drastically change our government for the better.

Catholic lawmakers would cease believing the old wives' tale that a woman's body can reject pregnancy from a rapist. They would learn that a pregnancy gone wrong can be a threat to a woman's health or even her life, and that some women must avoid pregnancy at all costs, but still deserve a happy marriage.

Being truly informed, they would cease using the legend of Eve's "sin" as justification for the "Comstockery" climate of modern-day politics in our country. (If readers don't understand that reference, look it up on the Internet.)

Medical methods of preventing pregnancy are part of the knowledge on the Internet, as are other medical facts which these same legislators all use to better their lives: eye surgery to correct vision, dental implants, artificial limbs. None of these is "natural," but the Church doesn't protest their use, calling only contraception "unnatural." Of course, these modern techniques weren't known back in 1930 when the Church condemned "artificial" methods of contraception .

Well, maybe this is the reason God finally gave us the Internet!

With over 7 billion people on this Earth and the environmental damage such numbers cause, it's obviously time to start taking care of this fragile planet. Birth control is an important and necessary part of any remedial action.

If Catholic Congressmen didn't persistently block funds for International Family Planning, we could help families around tyhe world control their size. This would help end environmental degradation such as desertification, deforestation, and climate change. It would also reduce warfare in the world because fewer people would be contending for scarce resources.

Well-informed legislators would stop creating forced-ultrasound and clinic- closing laws; they would drop the law that could lead to the IRS auditing rape victims. They would stop the picketing to close women's health clinics that provide abortions, acknowledging that women need this option as well as the medical checkups these clinics provide to prevent cancer or venereal diseases.

As for the years of violence, chaos and threats that occur at these clinics, they would call it what it is: TERRORISM. And they would take the necessary measures to prevent it and judge those acts the same way they do the violence from religious or political terrorists who attack our country.

Responsible legislators would stop the open aid to these domestic terrorists such as passing laws to close down clinics (ex. TX with its excessive regulations of clinics) or proposing unreasonable limitations on the legal abortion period.

Pope Francis is declaring that knowledge, as shown on the Internet, is no threat to his faith, but is, in his opinion, a "gift from God." Now if he can find a way for his Church to drop its prohibition against birth control and abortion -- perhaps by reinterpreting the Biblical story of Onan spilling his seed -- then this persecution of women could stop and women would be one step closer to becoming full citizens in our country at last.