On Sunday November 4 more than 100 doctors gathered for the annual Toronto Catholic Doctor’s Guild meeting. This year, mass and dinner took place at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto in downtown Toronto.
The Guild was formed to be a pro-life and pro-family presence in a profession in which many have accepted pro-abortion and anti-family philosophies.
This year’s keynote speaker was Fr. John McGoey, a family counselor who has published several books on human values and human relationships.
Fr. McGoey has created a prototype family religion course which would start with young children, teaching the importance of true love of God and the difference between good and evil.
Fr. McGoey is a very powerful speaker and he delivered his talk with great energy, and engaging personal imagery.
With regard to drug-related problems and young people Fr. McGoey brought out a very interesting point. Confessing that he had a large quantity of morphine administered to him because of a series of heart attacks, he noted that pain he thought would “blow his chest apart,” simply disappeared because of the morphine. One of his conclusions, in regard to this experience, was that drugs do not augment of provide “feelings,” as is so often stated and even promoted by drug users, but eliminate feeling entirely. Drugs rob us of that part of our humanity which warns us and awakens us to serious problems: “Pain isn’t bad; it’s unpleasant but pain can save your life – it wakes people up to their problems,” he said. He suggested that addicts avoid pain at all costs and in that way avoid being human.
He said that our teachers have “bought” all the modern psychological-party-lone nonsense that “you have to ‘feel’ good about yourself,” with no regard to the cost to yourself and to those around you. The medical profession dispenses most of the drugs used in this community and, he told the assembled doctors, “the reality of life is pain and pleasure and when your kids find even necessary pain unacceptable; even harmful pleasure irresistible they are addicts.” He said that when he has asked users why they take drugs they reply “to feel good.” Fr. McGoey stated that this is what students are taught in our schools today, they are being taught to simply “feel good” not to act or to do good.
Pets and pet rocks
He suggested his programme and texts might be examined and used as an antidote to a drug culture that teaches that one can “have a relationship” with a pet or even a pet rock.
He said that we have brought up a generation of kids that “would rather feel nothing than feel bad,” and that this phenomenon somewhat explains the increased violence in this society:
This is why we have so many kids running down the street and mugging little old ladies and feeling nothing. We’ve made our guilt feelings an atrocity instead of an asset. Who can form a good conscience without feeling guilty?
Fr. McGoey said “… We’re raising a generation without a conscience.”
He suggested school boards get a “believer” in charge of religious education and that “family education” becomes a weekly part of the religious education programme.
CAS
