Pearl S. Buck said, “It is natural anywhere that people like their own kind, but it is not necessarily natural that their fondness for their own kind should lead them to the subjection of whole groups of other people not like them.”
Do you think this statement applies to abortion?
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I think that people will look at that and think that’s a step too far…. I find it really abhorrent to see the sort of campaign that’s been raised now on a really sensitive issue.
I’m concerned to see young kids involved in a debate like this.
There was a good point made in some of the commentary that I saw, that these young people are at an age that they haven’t actually lived long in the life to experience the competing issues that adults have to confront in their lifetime.
~ Australian Premier Lara Giddings (pictured above right; click to enlarge), commenting on silent protests at the Tasmanian Parliament involving “more than 200 people… [including] young children – some in school uniform… rall[ying] against proposed changes to the state’s laws to allow abortions up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy,” as quoted by ABC News, April 10
Video at link.
Comments (1)
I don’t think it does. I think he’s speaking more of people’s “kind” being people who are ethnically, racially, or religiously grouped together, a particular mindset or set of customs that would cause people to steer away from or shun other groups that are different or foreign from their own. I don’t see unborn children being a separate “race” of people, I see them as being a part of the group of their parents, whichever that may be.
No, I don’t see a connection. If it were to apply to abortion it would imply that people have abortions with the intention of demonstrating their hatred against babies or fetuses or children or whatever. And that, my friends, is simply not the case.
No, I don’t think it applies. Babies in the womb are “our kind” to the most extreme degree. They are the only chance for “our kind” to continue. There is an inherent human desire to continue our own line — if not so much our race, at least our particular family — which is part of what makes abortion so perverse.
Yes, I do. There is a strange sense of entitlement and empowerment that underlines legal abortion. I mean, how much more powerful can you get than being granted the legal means to choose who lives and who dies. I know many pro-choice have good intentions and don’t see the slippery slope, but the dangers are there nevertheless. And, it’s very, very scary!
“Do you think this statement applies to abortion?”
Yes, for pro-aborts anyway. As they commonly refer to little babies in the womb as parasites who are using their bodily resources. They see unborn humans as not equivalent to born humans (“not their own kind”), so yes it most certainly applies.
Thanks Jasper,
For a moment, I thought I was going to be the only YES, and drown in a sea of NO.
A fetus is human, no PC would ever claim otherwise (unless they are retarded) BUT a fetus is not a person. so it cannot be “hated” against, or subjected to anything since it has no rights.
HI jon,
’tis strange … the disentitlement does seem to apply here … we legally distance ourselves from these humans by calling them non-legal persons …. since when does being a non-person equal a call to death … whether or not rights are in question? On what is this alleged offense based?
Remember that there has never been a time that we have declared someone a “non-person human” for any reason but to strip them of rights.
A human cannot be a non-person, any more than a person can be a non-human.
Actually, Something being both alive and genetically human does NOT make it a person.
Cancer is alive and human. So it your hair.
A PERSON has rights, human cells do not.
Neither cancer nor hair are organisms. Humans, however, are organisms from the earliest stages of development.
Pregnancy is not like the growth of cancer or infestation by a biological parasite; it is the way every human being enters the world. Strained philosophical analogies fail to apply.
Yes, JJ and Lauren, Exactly!
I like to think of myself as a parasite…financially on my parents.
*shakes fist at college*
I blame Pawlenty.
Personally, I don’t think it applies. I have never “hated” a fetus/embryo/etc. I don’t wish to “subjugate” them.
My philosophy of pro-choice rests solely on the idea that no one EVER has a right to another person’s body, only the opportunity for permission. When and if permission ends, the usage of another’s body ends. I am not prideful enough to think that I ever had a “right” to my mother’s organs, nutrients,life, body, anything. I only had permission.
That opportunity or denial of bodily permission applies to ALL human beings, not just fetuses/embryos/zygotes. Therefore, the whole subjugation idea doesn’t apply. The whole part where “well, it’s how all people come into being” is irrelevant, as there are new people everyday in need of blood, organs, and other necessary things for life from other people who may either give or deny permission to their bodies so that others may use them.
Same here, Rae…. I’m definitely a parasite in that way.
I constantly apologize to my mom and dad for being a leech, and that is why I intend on paying them back for all they’ve done for me.
@Lyssie: I apologize all the time too. It’s part of the reason I’m moving out of the house and on my own…so that I pay for the “cost of living” so to speak: a place to live, gas for the vehicle, groceries etc and my dad agreed to pay tuition. I also plan to pay my parents back, it’ll take awhile because grad school is going to murder me financially but it will get done.
@Lyssie: “The moral right to control one’s own body does apply to cases of organ transplants, giving blood, etc., but it is not a conceptualization adequate for abortion. The abortion dilemma is caused by the fact that following a conception in one body, another body will emerge. One’s own body no longer exists as a single unit but is engendering another organism’s life. This dynamic passage from conception to birth is genetically ordered and universally found in the human species.
Human ambivalence, a bias toward self-interest, and emotional stress has always been recognized as endangering judgment. In the case of a woman’s involuntary pregnancy, a more humane, long-term solution requiring effort and energy has to compete with the immediate solution offered by a morning’s visit to an abortion mill. The speed, ease and privacy of abortion, combines with the small size of the embryo, tend to make abortions seem less morally serious — even though speed, size, technical ease, and the private nature of an act have no moral standing.” (by Callihan)
“One’s own body no longer exists as a single unit but is engendering another organism’s life.”
Again, it’s the permission aspect. My body is under my control, and I can deny my property to another being even if it might die by so doing. If one does not wish to give one’s bodily property, consisting of nutrients, womb, etc, you cannot force them to. I can deny my body from “engendering another organism’s life”. It has nothing to do with “speed, ease, and privacy of abortion”. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that my womb, my nutrients, my life, and my body belong completely and solely unto me. If a woman does not permit her body to house another being, whether or not it is human, and it is negatively affecting her health/life/livelihood, it is up to her and her alone to remove the problem.
Again, even if the fetus is deemed a person, it still stands to reason that no person is given an inherent right to “own” the body or any part of it of another person. It may have the right to life, fine. Just take it out of a woman’s body, which she alone owns, intact, and let it keep that right. The fact that it may not have the ABILITY to live without using her against her will and causing physical changes to her body that she does not permit is irrelevant. Rights are still maintained on both sides. The fact that one does not have an ability does not automatically give it a right to take from another being to fulfill that ability.
ACTUALLY, Cancer is a separate life form from its host, it is organic, containing human DNA and genetic codes. The only difference between a fetus and cancer is that the fetus is not attacking your living tissue…. all the time.
Plus, has anyone here actually READ the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?? they are not granted to “all things human”… but “all people of the world”.
The only difference between a fetus and cancer is that the fetus is not attacking your living tissue…. all the time.
Hmm, I never knew that cancer was a living human organism, but I guess you learn something new every day.
@lyssie
Parents must give up their right to privacy and their right to property for their children untill they can find a suitable alternative. Explain to me then the significant difference between the rights to privacy and property and the right to bodily autonomy. Why is it that a person has the right to withold their body from their child, but not their property or their privacy?
@Bethany
The same that people tend to confuse separate DNA as the only quality for being an organism, also seem to confuse actual organisms as unalive.
Lyssie: “I am not prideful enough to think that I ever had a “right” to my mother’s organs, nutrients,life, body, anything. I only had permission.”
easy for you to say, you’ve already been born. I doubt you would’ve agreed when your mother was pregnant with you.
Lyssie: “The fact that it may not have the ABILITY to live without using her against her will and causing physical changes to her body that she does not permit is irrelevant. Rights are still maintained on both sides. The fact that one does not have an ability does not automatically give it a right to take from another being to fulfill that ability.”
Lyssie, put yourself in the unborn babys shoes, would you still be for the right of your Mother to terminate you?
Jon,
Oh please…that is one of the silliest things I have heard here yet.
A cancer cell, will never, no matter how long it lives in it’s host, emerge as a human being. Have you been smokin’ crack?
A fertilized egg IS a human being. A cancer cell is and always will be a cancer cell.
Do you honestly believe that a cancer cell IS a human being?
And I don’t need to read a declaration of anything to know that a baby should not be killed by the one person in the world who should move heaven and hell to protect it.
Are you for real?
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, the world’s largest pro-life organization, has stated that abortion is the same bloodthirsty and ritual sacrifice of babies to a demonic god that occurred throughout history and across cultures.
Speaking from this wealth of practical and spiritual experience, Euteneuer recently explained the demonic nature of abortion, noting that Jesus himself called the devil, “a murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44). Approaching abortion from a spiritual perspective, he explained, “The spiritual dimension of this grisly ‘business’ is its systematizing of ritual blood sacrifice to the god of child murder, Moloch.”
He also noted that this “bloodthirsty” beast is well known not only through the Old Testament but in many different cultures throughout history as well. “This demon is not content with a single act of murder here and there,” he said. “His insatiable appetite for the death of innocents seeks public endorsement to justify his gruesome deeds, and he needs a systematic expression of it to increase his worship.”
In his upcoming book on exorcism, Euteneuer writes, “The modern abortion industry offers ritual blood sacrifice to the ancient abortion demon. It is in every way a demonic religion.
- It has its sacred dogma (“choice”),
- its ruling hierarchy (Planned Parenthood),
- its theologians (feminist ideologues),
- its sacrificing priesthood (abortionists),
- its temples (abortion mills),
- altars (surgical tables),
- ritual victims (primarily babies and secondarily women),
- acolytes and sacristans (clinic workers and death-escorts),
- congregations (all supporters of abortion) and
- its own unifying principle of sacramental “grace” (money).
“In short, the abortion industry is a perfect demonic system which offers a perverse form of worship to the devil.”
“The sacrificial victim in this demonic religion is not a brute animal as was offered to the Old Testament God of Israel in a legitimate system of religious sacrifices. In abortion, the victim is an innocent human being who is made in the ‘image and likeness of God’ and who can never defend herself.”
And once again, Jasper lacks his own thought! He has to plagiarize from others to prove his points!
That’s some thinking there!
I’m not stealing anything Rae, I noted Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer in the first sentence.
@Jasper: It’s still not your original thoughts. Just shows you have no capability for independent thought if you feel the need to quote.
Anyway, I’m done being a pain in the arse. Just a wee bit cranky this evening. I apologize.
Jasper,
That is so funny. I just sent that post to Jill, Bethany and Valerie. I thought it apropos because I said that I thought that doctor BEKET was infested with demons. And someone (I think Rosie) asked if some of these guys really were affected by the demonic.
I saw Father Tom give a talk last March? and he talked for three hours on how when you are talking to the deathscorts and nurses and doctors you must always remember that you are talking first to their demons. The person themself can’t even hear you. He warned us (when we are at the clinics) to pray a short prayer of exorcism before we engage them in conversation, because it is really dangerous to engage demons in dialogue.
Anyway, I was trying to find a copy of that speech after Rosie? asked about it, and couldn’t find anything.
The next day, this came in an email. So I sent it to Jill and lo and behold you posted it…
It’s powerful stuff.
Rae, I know you’ve gotta fight Jasper, it’s just how you two work, but this is something you should look at.
I have a book called Angels and Demons (not Dan Brown’s) and it really gives you chills. Not only is God real, but so is Satan and his minions. While it is dangerous not to believe in God, it is also very dangerous not to believe in demons.
One of Satan’s greatest weapons is to convince people that he doesn’t exist. Makes it that much easier to influence them. Watch the exorcist again. It was based on a true story…
Rae,
You’re almost never cranky. You get a free pass.
Anything we can help with? Here’s a smooshy hug!
@MK: No, nothing y’all can help with. Just frustrated and lonely, gotta deal with it meself.
I don’t doubt that there’s evil in the world, I really don’t. I see evil every day when I read the newspaper. I just don’t think it’s derived from the spiritual realm, but from human nature, I believe humans are naturally bad.
Rae,
I can see why you would think that. But humans are just humans. What makes them “bad” or “good” are the CHOICES that they make…And I swear to you, there are evil forces, constantly nudging them to make bad ones.
The thing is, these demons use us. They make it seem like they are offering us all kinds of goodies, like they care about us. But to them, we are just tools. Their real goal? They just want to snub the Big Guy…and they do that by stealing as many souls from Him as they can. Then they dump you, because you’ve served your purpose…It’s frightening…unless of course you are well armed…
Rae,
Padre Pio was physically attacked by them his whole life. The other monks would stand outside his locked door and hear him being beaten…then hours later he would open the door and he looked like he had been in a gang war…He knew them first hand…
Padre Pio had his first vision at age five and experienced his guardian angel as “the playmate of my youth.” For years he assumed that others had these experiences too. “You’re saying that out of humility,” he once responded when a confessor assured him that he himself had never seen the Blessed Mother. Pio also saw demons and suffered satanic attacks so violent and noisy that they often left him bruised and sent neighbors running terrified from their homes. He could read minds, foretell events, and be in two places at once. Dramatic conversions and physical healings happened around him almost routinely. A mysterious fragrance announced his presence and clung to whatever he touched. And he had the stigmata, the wounds of Christ’s passion.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4098/is_200401/ai_n9378906
@MK: I don’t mean to be insensitive, but how do they know he was just not crazy and was beating himself or he was “punishing” himself?
“Anyway, I’m done being a pain in the arse. Just a wee bit cranky this evening. I apologize.”
That’s Ok Rae, I have a tendancy to push pro-choicers buttons.
@Jasper: No, you just have a tendency to push my buttons and it’s unfortunate that I allow you to get under my skin the way you do.
Rae,
There were too many things that he did…
Bi location (being in two places at once), foretelling the future…the stigmata…
His miracles are too many to mention.
He only died in 1978. He is a saint of our time, and not one that lived so long ago that you could pass him off as legend. He was canonized only a few years ago. You should read about him. And Medjugorje. And Saint Faustina.
Too many witnesses, photographs…books and books and books have been written about him.
I used to post stuff for Samantha T. If you want I’ll post some for you…It will disrupt your sleep tho…
“One of Satan’s greatest weapons is to convince people that he doesn’t exist. Makes it that much easier to influence them.”
So true MK.
Rae,’
Just keep remembering that men address the subject while women address each other. Jasper is really railing on abortion, not you…tho it may seem like he is attacking you personally.
@MK: No it’s okay, but thanks for the offer.
@Jasper: And no, you really didn’t put me in a bad mood, I was already in one, which is why your comments annoyed me more than normal.
Rae,
I’m just trying to get you to be “pro-Life”. I know I come off kinda mean sometimes, but I do like you and think you are a good person.
Rae,
Mother Theresa says:
@Jasper: I don’t think I’ll ever be the type of “pro-lifer” you’d want me to be.
@MK: Thank you, it is very, very kind of you but really, my loneliness is my own fault and is due to my own poor choices and it really should not be the concern of others. However, I do appreciate the thought, I really do.
Ahhh Rae,
I can’t help what is in my heart, anymore than you can help what is in yours. You are in my heart and have been for quite some time. No one chooses to be lonely. I just want you to know that no matter how “lonely” you may feel, as long as I am alive, you will not be “alone”…
Enough mush…want to split a lemming?
@MK: I think that would be delightful, shall I start up the fire pit and set up the rotisserie? I have some delicious spices here that I think would be just sinfully delightful on lemming.
Mmmmmm…but I want a cup of tea with mine. Whip cream or barbeque sauce?
I love you girl.
I’m going to bed now, and I’m taking a mullet with me in case I’m attacked by padre pio’s demons…I suggest you do the same!
Sweet dreams.
Don’t bite the bed bugs…
Jill:
The question you pose is especially relevant.
I see all kinds of justification for abortion from parents, mothers, boyfriends, husbands, especailly when an unwanted pregancy threatens the stautus quo (of a loved one), i.e., interruption of life plans, presentation of a financial challenge, etc.
The root is narcissism, a result of the fall, with no concern for what’s right or wrong. So-called Christians are especaily guilty of this as they can suspend all moral logic in demonizing an innocent child in the womb, in favor of convenience.
So my answer is an emphatic yes.
His Man, the justifications are pathetic, aren’t they? I have yet to hear a good one.
Some excuses; “Too young” Not at 20. “No money” Sorry, you own a home and a car. You also have a killer job. “No time” Make it! “I’m not getting along with my boyfriend” Well, you were just a little over a month ago. “My parents will kill me” No they won’t. Besides, you’re 30. Seriously, these ARE the real excuses I have heard for every post abortive woman I have known. I have NEVER heard of rape, incest, or a pregnancy related health problem.
It becomes very difficult to sympathize.
Hi gang,
when Lyssie first came on this board she espoused ‘bodily autonomy’ as being THE best answer … and so was happy to embrace the pro-choice (even the pro-abort stance). Soon after, Diana seems to radicalize the argument even more by declaring the right to bodily autonomy even out ranked a right to life and a woman’s control superseded a baby’s rights even if human, alive and a person (for Lyssie).
MK, jasper and I and others have found all sorts of holes in this contention, but these seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
There is an argument that refutes this, but I need some help in flushing it out: The focus on the right to bodily-autonomy comes from a presumption of ranking aspects of what comprises a human being. Through reduction they conclude ‘body autonomy’ to be fundamental.
This refutation makes use of this ‘reductionist mentality’. We can surmise that there are several things that comprise this body-autonomy notion: ie, body-integrity … what makes a physical human, human …. for conjoined twins are there 2 persons and 1 body? Who can tell where body autonomy exists? …for which twin? And: what chemicals make a body living? Can we not just remove these chemicals only and leave the rest? What does at mean to be alive …. there are no rights if a human is dead. Is it not better to be alive than to be dead? Does a woman killing her ‘fetus’ via abortion do the baby a favour?
A while back, I argued that if a person got of a midway-ride in the middle (a roller-coaster run; or, a ferris wheel), there was a good chance of getting killed. It seems (trying to understand Diana) that body autonomy even survives death itself and is more important than death. It may be foolish but she can still exercise her body-autonomy and get off in mid-ride. [In philosophy this notion was called the 'will'.]
so what power has ‘will’? Gather together 10, 100, 1000. 10,000 people and place a single sheet of paper down and ask them to lift this single sheet by thinking alone, it will remain unmoved. It can and easily does utilize other affiliated systems to fulfill the ‘wills’ objectives. So, body-autonomy/will is not an isolate but is itself dependent on other powers/rights to maintain a living existence. Body-autonomy exists as a lone right only in the mind, in actual living it is but one part of reality.
@John
Youre making things way more complicated than it needs to be.
The dispute over bodily autonomy is not that bodily autonomy overcomes the right to life or is “more important than death.” The point of “choicers” is to point out that no person is required to sacrifice any of their rights for anyone else’s rights, regardless of their “rank.”
Essentially it is not my responisbility to feed a homeless person to keep him alive, or house a homeless person to protect him from the storm, or give him my kidney, etc.
However, the issue changes when you take into the concept of the “right to not be neglected.” All people have the right to not be neglected as insinuated by the idea of the Social contract. There are certain people in our society that have no means to care for themselves (children, the mentally handicaped, the elderly, etc.)
The question then is “who is responsible to not neglect these people?” Our concern for the sake of abortion is children. The default responsiblity goes to the parents. It is up to the parents to provide food, water, and shelter at the minimum to their kids. That is untill they have found an alernative solution, such as adoption to another family. In this scenario the parents lose their rights to privacy and property to the degree that it takes to “not neglect” their kids.
A parent cannot get off halfway as you say, and leave their child in the house to starve, or even to say “get out Timmy! Get off my property!” and throw them on the lawn to die of weather exposure or some such thing.
Now the immediate response to this by the “choice” side is to claim that no parent is responsible to provide their bodily autonomy for their kid should their kid have kidney failure. This is true, but this is where you need to better evaluate the criterion for neglect. To prevent neglect food, water, and shelter are needed at the minimum as stated earlier. A kidney is not required to sacrifice because food, water, and shelter are outside sources that no indigent can provide for themselves; however, the failure of an indigent’s own body is no other person’s responsiblity. Think a mentally handicapped person is not owed a brain transplant but they are owed care.
Now we take the step directly into the issue of pregnancy. The mother does not owe their fetus their uterus or their womb or whatever, but they DO owe their fetus the right to not be neglected at the sacrifice of their rights to that degree untill a suitable alternative can be found. A fetus requires food, water, shelter and oxygen. These are things that currently only a mother’s womb can provide untill I believe 24 weeks. Therefore the mother is owed responsiblity to this fetus untill she can find an alternative.
Is abortion a suitable alternative? Does it “not neglect” the fetus by providing food, shelter and water etc? Of course not.
YAY! for Padre Pio!
PS Mass is at 7:30 am EST…thats pretty early! Val should be proud.
*yawns* On a completely different note…Pearl S. Buck was a terrible author. The Good Earth was quite possibly the worst book I’ve ever read in my life.
Look at it like this. Someone has to be responsible for this fetus’s life, because all people have the right to not be neglected, so the default has to be the parent. A parent never signs some form of contract to accept responsibility for their child. Yet, if they give birth, they become immediately responsible. Think a woman dumping their newborn in the dumpster, then having charges pressed against her for negligience. Her resonsibility lasts untill she finds the local police station.
The only reason you even question the responsibility of a pregnant mother but do not question that of a new mother is because of ingrained social constructs.
The mother is not resonsibile because of choice (although we could embark on that desolate road of logic), but simply because there could be no other one. Again, remember this applies to the concept of neglect, not just rights in general.
Belonging to human society sucks. We dont get to choose the rules we follow, we are simply thrust into this world and expected to obey them.
In this touchy, feely, “everyone is a beautiful butterfly” kind of world we dont like to hear this, but its essentially the truth. I didnt choose to be a human, or a man, or to be white, or to be born in Texas, or even on the Earth, but here I am and I have to learn the rules and abide by them.
We are automatic beneficiaries of human society, but are also automaticaly obligated to it as well.
Ooooooh, I like when John and Oliver talk…you guys are good and while the thinking was deep I didn’t need my dictionary once…keep it up!
Hi again Oliver and a big welcome,
because you seem new to this site both MK and I (and others) have debated and debated that there is an attached obligation/responsibility to activity. Granted … even by most pro-choicers after birth but before this event, abortion is assumed by many not only legal but necessary.
It is only about relieving the womb of a being that is not sentient yet and has not developed a capacity for pain. [As such it is only the pregnant woman's choice, the fetus' presence is irrelevant except that it is obstructive.] So, just as they refuse to permit a legal personhood with attendant rights for a fetus, they would as likely refuse to be denoted as ‘parents’ with all such obligations, including neglect. Their’s is a-search-and-destroy-mission, one cannot say they were ‘neglectful’ …. heartless – ‘yes’ but very aware (just sinister)!
It appears that after-birth there is a fusion of obligation from both pro-choicers and pro-lifers towards newborns … but prior to birth, there seems to be approval for abortion as a back-up to failed contraception. We get chastized for even suggesting any kind of parental obligation or of fetal rights. All humans do have the right not to be neglected but does a fetus have this right? Says who?
If a couple goes before an OB … what words is he likely to use: ‘Congratulations! YOU’RE GOING (not ‘are’) TO BE parents.’ Even he understands that parental obligations begin at the birth of their child. Are these obligations extended into pregnancy too?
Well you find yourself now in the difficult side of the argument – *establishing* the right to not be neglected for a fetus.
In my brief experience I have encountered people who just argue a fetus is not a “being” so it does not deserve rights and people who argue that even if a fetus had rights, they could not infringe upon a womans right to bodily autonomy blah blah etc.
Essentially in my opinion, the right to not be neglected essentially would overcome in part the mother’s right to autonomy (again to the degree to not neglect the fetus.) However, the rights of the fetus would still be in question.
Now, I personally HATE trying to prove that a fetus has rights, namely because my belief is convoluted and difficult to explain clearly without going in depth. Then when you do go indepth it sounds so complicated that it sounds false (going with the idea that the easiest and simplest is most often the correct.)
But I will eventually bring that up next time it is relevant to somebody’s post here (preferably a pro-choicer.)
@MK: I don’t mean to be insensitive, but how do they know he was just not crazy and was beating himself or he was “punishing” himself?
Posted by: Rae at July 28, 2007 11:42 PM
Good question, Rae, and one that deserves an intelligent answer. At least I’ll try to sound intelligent :=)
Padre Pio was not the first person to have undergone those types of encounters. Two thousand years of church history has provided theologians and other authorities enough experience to know whether something is authentic or a result of mental/emotional issues. It should be noted that when his superiors became aware of his spiritual “favors” and the to-do it was creating, he was sternly warned and forbidden to say mass for a long period of time, something like several years. The key to his authenticity was his obedience. He submitted to their authority wholeheartedly and never once tried to defend himself.
There are definite criteria to establish authenticity. It’s way more than can be posted here; whole books are written on the subject. Like any investigation, witnesses are called in, his writings and behavior are analyzed for inconsistencies if any, and the concept of heroic virtue comes into the fore.
MK has already given a brief overview of the life of this incredible saint. This guy would spend hours and hours and hours in the confessional listening to confessions and giving folks absolution. People would wait days in line to have their confession with him. There’s even a story of one woman who had his confession with him and shared with him all her sins, or so she thought. Yet Padre Pio would not give her absolution because he insisted that there was one more sin that she had not confessed. After 3 visits, she still couldn’t remember which sin Padre Pio was talking about. Here’s the rest of the story…
“When she returned for the third time for confession, Padre Pio asked, ‘So, do you remember everything now?’ She replied, ‘No, Padre, I don’t have anything more to confess.’ Then Padre Pio said in a loud voice, ‘What do you mean, you don’t remember anything? Don’t you know he could have been a good priest, a bishop, even a cardinal?’ She started to think and then began to cry, ‘Father,’ she said, ‘I never knew abortion was a sin.’ ‘What do you mean,’ he said, ‘you didn’t know that this was a sin? That’s killing.’ Then she said, Nobody knows about this, only me and my mother. How could you say it would have been a priest or a cardinal?’ Padre Pio simply responded by saying, ‘But it’s a sin, a great sin.’ ”
Read up on him someday. It’s a true story that just can’t be put down.
>>Pearl S. Buck said, “It is natural anywhere that people like their own kind, but it is not necessarily natural that their fondness for their own kind should lead them to the subjection of whole groups of other people not like them.