Watching the World
Catholic Moral Theology and Young Italian Women
Young Italian women, whether Catholic or not, take little notice of the pope when it comes to their sexual morality. In fact, according to the results of research published by the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, as many as 90.8 percent of young women between the ages of 15 and 24 who were interviewed believed that “use of contraceptives must be guaranteed to women,” while 66.7 percent defended “the right to interrupt ‘an unwanted pregnancy.’” Furthermore, 80.2 percent of them believed that “the rights of homosexuals should be guaranteed and respected.”
Toxins Found in Newborn’s Hair
There is now biological evidence to prove that secondhand tobacco smoke breathed in by nonsmoking pregnant women makes its way into the fetus, says The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Canada. New findings from a research team headed by Dr. Gideon Koren, a clinical pharmacologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, indicate that hair samples from newborn contain nicotine and its by-product, cotinine. The nonsmoking mothers were exposed to secondhand smoke for at least two hours a day, either at home or at work. According to Dr. Koren, routinely breathing secondhand smoke may be like “smoking two to four cigarettes a day.” This new research “adds more weight to earlier studies that suggested that tobacco smoke exposure could affect children’s behavioural and cognitive development,” adds The Globe. Dr. Koren cautioned that “in the litigious atmosphere we live in now, I cannot tell you that in 10 to 20 years we won’t see babies suing their parents for wrongful birth based on smoking”!
Shoplifting Goes International
“Graduates” of a “theft school” in Santiago, Chile, are active in Montreal and Toronto, Canada, and some U.S. cities, reports L’actualité, a Canadian newsmagazine. The “school” teaches techniques for picking pockets and shoplifting and provides education in Canadian laws and police methods. “Graduates” work in groups, carry false papers, and are equipped with specially lined clothes and gift wrapping to hide their loot. The Montreal Urban Community police have traced the network and made several seizures of stolen clothing since 1991. Recently their biggest recovery was a shipping container full of clothing destined for Chile. Both for police and for shopkeepers, however, this international network of organized shoplifting poses a formidable challenge. One Montreal detective quoted in L’actualité said that to get the international police to cooperate is difficult, since “it’s not a priority to them.”
Global Refugee Crisis
During 1992, nearly 10,000 people a day became refugees. So affirms The State of the World’s Refugees, a new book by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). There were 18.2 million refugees worldwide in 1992, eight times as many as there were 20 years earlier. An additional 24 million people have become displaced in their own countries. In all, about 1 in every 130 people on earth has been forced to flee from home. The UNHCR magazine Refugees states: “The relentless increase in numbers—both of genuine refugees and of economic migrant—has imposed a serious strain on the 3,500-year-old tradition of asylum, bringing it close to collapse.”
Are You Sleepy?
Are you getting enough sleep at night? One way to find out, says one researcher, is to eat a big meal and then go to a dull lecture in a warm room. If you are well rested, you may feel bored and restless but not sleepy. According to the International Herald Tribune, experts estimate that 100 million Americans do not get enough sleep. Most people need from eight to eight and a half hours of sleep at night; people from 17 to 25 years of age need even more. While many people get by with less sleep than they really need, sleep-deprived people are more likely to make mistakes. They also build up a “sleep debt.” States the Tribune: “Parents bemoan their teenagers’ ‘laziness’ because they sleep until noon on weekends, but most of these young people are only trying to cancel some of their weeklong sleep debt.”
Abuse by Clergy Exposed
One of Canada’s largest sexual abuse investigations involving Catholic Christian Brothers has been finalized. “More than 700 victims have come forward from St. Joseph’s” school in Alfred, Ontario, and St. John’s school in Uxbridge, Ontario, reports The Toronto Star. Complaints were lodged “against 30 men, including 29 members of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Charges would have been laid against another 16 if they were still alive,” adds the Star. The victims still experience disturbing recollections of “childhood beatings and sexual attacks by the black-robed members of the Roman Catholic lay order into whose care they had been entrusted.” The Star says that without a public inquiry, Canadians may never learn why men who claim to serve God subject young boys to sexual abuse.
Thermometer Crickets
If you live in Africa, you can now find out the temperature without the aid of a thermometer, according to a scientific journal on zoology. This can be done, in Celsius, by counting the number of chirps an African tree cricket (Oecanthus karschi) makes in six seconds, and adding 12 to the total. Or if you are listening to the South African Cape species (Oecanthus capensis), by counting its chirps in three seconds and adding 11 to the total. The chirping of these two species of tree cricket is slow enough to count. It is also loud enough, since they position themselves on the leaves in such a way that the chirping is amplified as if through a loudspeaker. As the night temperature drops, the chirping slows down. Explains the journal African Wildlife: “Crickets are ‘cold blooded’ so their metabolism is affected by air temperature. This affects almost every aspect of their lives, including the rates at which they sing.”
Ultraviolet Troubles
Do you like to spend your vacations relaxing under the sun? If you do, be careful! Although the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays are beneficial in moderation, too much exposure can cause skin cancers, eye diseases, premature wrinkling of the skin, malignant skin tumors, and a weakening of the body’s ability to fight disease. According to the World Health Organization, UV levels are increasing because the ozone layer is decreasing. Now, in many parts of the world, including Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, UV health problems develop sooner and faster. How to protect yourself in sunny climes? Wear protective clothing, wear UV absorbing sunglasses, and stay inside at noontime, when UV radiation is strongest.
Religious Big Business
One of the few sectors of the Italian economy making a profit, and perhaps the only one to succeed in beating the recession, is business “conducted in the shadow of the Church,” says the financial supplement of La Repubblica. In fact, during the sixth Exhibition of Religious Products, held in Pompeii, the turnover for the 1,400 companies operating in the field “was calculated to be 400 billion lire [$240 million, U.S.], with an estimated 15 per cent annual increase in the volume of sales.” Furthermore, religious tourism, which in 1993 attracted some 35 million pilgrims to the various places of worship in Italy, had a turnover almost ten times as large. “Businesses ‘blessed’ by the church are booming,” says the report, and “the Italian Catholic hierarchy, the Bishops’ Conference and the Holy See have been aware of it with pleasure for some time.” The church hierarchy has even organized and sponsored conferences—addressed even by high-ranking church officials—in order to manage the phenomenon.
Australia’s High Suicide Rate
The suicide rate is growing so alarmingly in Australia that the Public Health Association has now included suicide prevention in its national public health policy. When the number of suicides exceeded the number of deaths from road accidents for two years running, the Public Health Association realized something concrete must be done, and urgently. The Australian, a newspaper, quotes an association spokesman as saying: “Until now, suicide has not been taken up by the public health community, yet it has the characteristics of other public health concerns. Its incidence is as large and its harm as extensive as other issues which absorb public health interest and resources.” The present rate of suicides is a staggering 31 percent of all deaths not due to sickness, which is three percent higher than the rate of deaths caused by road accidents.