Thursday, March 03, 2011

Two Responses to Suffering

In the 1920's 2 American women saw poverty and suffering.  Each took a different course to try to end it.

The first, Margaret Sanger, said that "The most merciful thing a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."  She founded the American Birth Control League. Her solution to poverty and suffering was to separate out certain classes and races of people and to kill them.  Her organization later became Planned Parenthood.  In 2007, it killed more than 305,000 children in the name of women's "health".

Katharine Drexel was born to a wealthy banker who instilled in his daughter the idea that her privileged position was given to her by God.  She founded The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Black and Native American Peoples, giving both her wealth and her life to those who lived on the margins of society.

She was canonized in 1988 and is the second saint born in America.  Her feast is today, March 3.

 The inspiration for this post was an excellent article by Joshua Mercer.

Dymphna's favorite quotes


"Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. "— Rodney Stark

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