This week we ask the question: What is the difference between euthanasia and “letting” someone die?

This week, let’s take a look at the Catholic teaching on organ donation. It is a topic most of use must consider at some point in our lives, since federal regulations require hospitals to refer or call in all deaths to the donor networks.

There are some married couples who, although their sexual activity has been unitive and open to procreation, have not yet been blessed with a child of their own. These loving couples have prepared themselves and their homes for a new baby.

Same-sex unions have been in the media lately, and it is important to know why the Catholic Church is against the legalization of gay unions.

Some groups are trying to get relationships called same-sex unions to have the same legal equivalence as marriage. On June 3, 2003, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith released a document titled Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons. The document discussed the essential points about marriage and how the dignity of marriage as an institution is the foundation of the family and gives stability to society.

This week, let us discuss the difference between Natural Family Planning (NFP) and artificial birth control.

First of all, married couples in their wedding vows promise that their love will be free, faithful, total, and open to life. The Catholic Church teaches that sexual intercourse has a twofold meaning in which it is both unitive and procreative (open to life).

In my last column, I shared information about human sexuality. I thought I would continue on that topic and discuss the Catholic view concerning cohabitation before marriage.

Recently I was at the Catholic Medical Association Conference and discussed letters to parishioners that I had written on the Catholic perspective on human sexuality, cohabitation, Natural Family Planning, organ donation, and euthanasia. I was encouraged to share this information, and so here is the first in a series.