My letter to the Archbishop of Seattle
Posting this for the benefit of my Youtube audience as well as any other interested parties. Addresses and names, while not hard to find, have been stripped out. His response is not included - while his response was certainly kind and genuine, I don't want to risk putting him in any kind of a hard spot.
First, the video wherein I address the Archbishop's response and my feelings about it.
The letter
I begin this letter earnestly, in the spirit of full disclosure and mutual trust, by stating plainly that I am a nonreligious person. I am not a member of the Catholic Church and as such, I feel that it is important to establish that the questions contained herein are by no means intended to convey disrespect. I should further note that although I personally am an atheist and nonmember of the Catholic Church, the questions I ask are on my own behalf and not as a representative of any organization or institution, either spiritual or secular. I am not a member of the press or in any way affiliated with any news media agencies. Though my concerns bear on contraversial matters, I do not seek to come as an aggressor, but rather as an individual in search of understanding. In advance, I genuinely appreciate your time and consideration and apart from those troubling matters that weigh us down as people on this Earth - some of which I will discuss herein - I hope that this letter finds you well.
It is the evening of Thanksgiving Day as I write this letter. During this month, November of 2009, there have been three quite contraversial policy decisions within the Church that have caused me and my family enough distress that I felt it necessary to go directly to the source for more information. I understand that my concerns may be easily dismissed and this missive ignored, but I would personally consider it a respectable act of high integrity if my concerns elicited a reply with some insight into the official views of the Church on these matters. I would also welcome and appreciate your own point of view, not just as an Archbishop but as a man and member of the community.
The first policy decision I wish to address was reported in The Washington Post on November 12th, in an article titled “Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum.” This article reports that the Archdiocese of Washington, in response to a proposed same-sex marriage bill, has declared that it will “…be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District….” I found this disturbing for two reasons. First, the secular reason: an organization such as the Church, which receives the benefit of tax-exempt status in the United States, is acting presumptuously when it wields this economic latitude afforded it by the State to influence public policy in such a manner. On the surface of it, this seems to set a dangerous precedent for the involvement of Church with State, which is distressing to me as an American citizen and believer in our secular founding principles.
The second reason for this issue piquing my interest is that it seems to directly contradict the teachings of the Church. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, part 3, section 1, chapter 1, under the Theological Virtues is stated very clearly the importance of charity:
The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it. But "faith apart from works is dead" when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.
The reasoning behind my concern over what appears to be an inconsistency in the implementation of this moral principle is only secondarily that it gives the impression of the Church as an institution deciding to “take its ball and go home,” so to speak. My primary concern here is that if the Church does decide to go through with this ultimatum and put a stop to its social programs and charities in that diocese, the body of the Church itself - the individual men and women who make up the Church - will be left without the Church as a vehicle for their own drive to act charitably and care for their fellow humans.
If the Church, as an institution, decides to rescind its charitable promise in that area, does that also absolve (and in fact act to discourage) the charitable works of the Church as a collective of individuals? If so, this would seem to drive an immense wedge between the hierarchy of the Church and the body of the Church itself. Frankly, I do not see how this can end well for the Church. Good people will wish to give to the world regardless of the degree to which their institutions are willing to facilitate this giving, but it is only sensible that those who wish to give most will tend to move away from an institution that has become a hurdle and move toward other institutions, either religious or secular, that will better facilitate and focus those charitable energies. I understand that the Church does have a social agenda, but is the matter of policy over same-sex marriages so important that it is worth actually increasing the cost and difficulty of doing good works to those who wish to do so, in a time when so many of us are already stretched so thin in terms of what time and money we can afford to spend?
The second policy decision that I would like to address was reported in the Providence Journal (projo.com) on November 23rd, in an article titled, “Kennedy: Barred from Communion.” This article is about Rhode Island Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy who, in an interview, alleged that Bishop Thomas J. Tobin chose to penalize him for his stance on abortion rights as a political official by preventing him from participating in the ritual of Communion.
I’ll grant that I do understand the position of the Church on abortion and I do not wish to bring the debate over abortion itself into the scope of this letter. I also understand that the Church places the concept of morality above that of popularity, a position that I can respect even if I do not entirely agree with the details. However, I once again have two concerns about this action. First, while I did mention that the Church is not bound by popular opinion, Representative Kennedy is, in fact, bound by the laws of the State to represent his constituency with his congressional vote.
In principle, Kennedy’s decisions on public policy should have less to do with his own opinions than those of his constituents. However, if he allows his vote to be swayed by the punitive actions of Bishop Tobin, he betrays the trust of the people he has sworn to serve. In effect, this action seems to amount to a rather cruel form of political bribery, except that instead of bargaining with material wealth, Bishop Tobin is bargaining with the fate of Kennedy’s immortal soul. Kennedy is now in a position where he must either betray the public trust or betray his religion. Capitulation in either direction is damning, as he breaks an oath either way.
My second concern with this issue is that, while my understanding is that Bishops have a certain level of autonomy over these matters, the precedent set by this one Bishop will have non-Catholics once again fearing to elect Catholics into public office, even as the most well-known Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, came under much public scrutiny for his own Catholicism before being elected as President of the United States. If the Church is going to attempt to hold such direct sway over our Representatives, yet the Church does not represent the people as a whole, then why on Earth would any non-Catholic ever elect a Catholic into office, only to see him bend to the will of the Church on matters that we feel are important?
As a secular person, if it were common knowledge that an affiliation with the Church meant that a politician’s ability to represent the people was effectively compromised simply by virtue of his being Catholic, I would absolutely never vote for such an individual. The same is true of politicians with clearly evident allegiances to business interests or other organizational special interests. Again, this seems to bode very poorly for the Church. The ramifications could be very far-reaching. Does the Church acknowledge these possibilities in any way?
The third and final issue that I would like to address in this letter was reported by the news desk of a blog by the name of FireDogLake in an article titled, “Catholic Bishops Enact Plan For ‘300,000 Terri Schiavos’.” I’ll quote the first paragraph of that article here:
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops released an “Ethical and Religious Directive” this month that would ban any Catholic hospital, nursing home or hospice program from removing feeding tubes or ending palliative procedures of any kind, even when the individual has an advance directive to guide their end-of-life care. The Bishops’ directive even notes that patient suffering is redemptive and brings the individual closer to Christ.
The Church has apparently decided to preempt the lawful wishes of those whom tragedy befalls in such a way as to put them into a persistent vegetative state or in some other way requiring them to be placed under artificial life support with little to no hope of recovery. The article mentions, and it is well-known, that there are areas where there are no alternatives to Catholic-run hospitals, effectively placing patients in a position of being overruled by a regional monopoly on a lawfully made decision about the type of care that they should receive under such circumstances.
This was not a decision that was handed down by authorities on medicine. This was a policy decision made by theologians, not doctors. This decision runs contrary to the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath, which embodies the spirit of modern medicine itself as practiced by those professionals who truly understand the human body and its frailties and are met continuously with the sort of tragedies that ruin lives and families, as in the case of Terri Schiavo cited (in rather incendiary fashion, I grant) by the author of the article. The modern version of the Oath as rewritten in 1964 by Louis Lasagna has a passage that reads thus:
Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
While we may argue over the precise meaning of the phrase “play at God,” I think that the spirit of this message is very clear: that the role of a physician in the face of life and death is not that of a moral arbiter, but a facilitator of the body’s natural processes. Like politicians, medical doctors simply cannot be expected to act in the best interests of the patient, the patient’s family or the community at large when the standards of practice are handed down from a body of non-experts in the field of medicine whose purposes are solely to enforce a social and moralist agenda.
As a non-Catholic, I am deeply offended at the notion that I may, through simple accident of proximity and tragedy, end up in the care of a Catholic facility and treated in a manner not in accord with my wishes for the purpose of being brought closer to Christ through suffering. If someone’s wishes align to those of the Church then I see no problem, but for everyone else there is a definite conflict of interest. I want decisions about the care that I will receive to be between myself, my family and my physician, acting under the guidance of his knowledge and that of other professional physicians who have intimate, first-hand knowledge of the issues.
The thought of having unwanted weeks, months and years of unwanted and unaffordable torment thrust upon myself and my family due to this decision is tremendously frightening to me. It in no way inspires me with any kind of confidence in the Church, in fact having the opposite effect altogether and even inspiring a sense of revulsion. I am most likely not alone in this opinion. It is unjust at its very heart. However, as I’ve mentioned previously, I acknowledge that the Church has no obligation to appear just.
This brings me to a summary of what I perceive to be central to the issues above and the specific questions that I have for the Catholic Church and for you, if I may. In each of the policy decisions mentioned above, all of which happened in the month of November of this year, 2009, representatives of the Catholic Church have appeared to impose dogma upon people in such a way as to discriminate against members of the public, exert leverage over secular matters in order to enforce a social agenda, deny the lawful rights of citizens and hold nonbelievers to a set of moral standards to which they do not subscribe.
These issues have become known to me through friends and family who have considered themselves members of the Church, most of whom have left the Church due to disagreements over issues such as those above. They are not alone. An April 27th article in the U.S. News and World Report cites a Pew Forum poll that shows that four times as many Catholics are leaving the Church as are joining it. I don’t claim to know the particulars of enrollments at this time, but I simply cite the data to communicate what you almost certainly already know: that injustice, whether real or simply a mistaken perception, drives people away.
So my questions to you and to the Church are these:
Sincerely,
Lucas Parker
PS: All of the articles mentioned in this letter were found online. What follows is a complete bibliography.
Bibliography
Boorstein, Michelle, and Tim Craig. "Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum." The Washington Post. November 12, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111116943.html (accessed November 26, 2009).
Dayen, David. "Catholic Bishops enact plan for “300,000 Terri Schiavos”." FDL News Desk. November 24, 2009. http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/11/24/catholic-bishops-enact-plan-for-300000-terri-schiavos/ (accessed November 26, 2009).
Gilgoff, Dan. "Does the American Catholic Church have a numbers problem?" U.S. News and World Report. April 27, 2009. http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/04/27/does-the-american-catholic-church-have-a-numbers-problem.html (accessed November 26, 2009).
Lasagna, Louis. "The Hippocratic Oath: Modern Version." Nova | Doctor's Diaries. 1964. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html (accessed November 26, 2009).
Libreria Editrice Vaticana. "Catechism of the Catholic Church." Vatican: the Holy See. November 4, 1993. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc/index.htm (accessed November 26, 2009).
Mulligan, John E. "Kennedy: Barred from Communion." The Providence Journal. November 23, 2009. http://www.projo.com/news/johnmulligan/KENNEDY_COMMUNION_11-22-09_7PGHOLP_v17.38abb89.html (accessed November 25, 2009).
First, the video wherein I address the Archbishop's response and my feelings about it.
Click to viewThe letter
I begin this letter earnestly, in the spirit of full disclosure and mutual trust, by stating plainly that I am a nonreligious person. I am not a member of the Catholic Church and as such, I feel that it is important to establish that the questions contained herein are by no means intended to convey disrespect. I should further note that although I personally am an atheist and nonmember of the Catholic Church, the questions I ask are on my own behalf and not as a representative of any organization or institution, either spiritual or secular. I am not a member of the press or in any way affiliated with any news media agencies. Though my concerns bear on contraversial matters, I do not seek to come as an aggressor, but rather as an individual in search of understanding. In advance, I genuinely appreciate your time and consideration and apart from those troubling matters that weigh us down as people on this Earth - some of which I will discuss herein - I hope that this letter finds you well.
It is the evening of Thanksgiving Day as I write this letter. During this month, November of 2009, there have been three quite contraversial policy decisions within the Church that have caused me and my family enough distress that I felt it necessary to go directly to the source for more information. I understand that my concerns may be easily dismissed and this missive ignored, but I would personally consider it a respectable act of high integrity if my concerns elicited a reply with some insight into the official views of the Church on these matters. I would also welcome and appreciate your own point of view, not just as an Archbishop but as a man and member of the community.
The first policy decision I wish to address was reported in The Washington Post on November 12th, in an article titled “Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum.” This article reports that the Archdiocese of Washington, in response to a proposed same-sex marriage bill, has declared that it will “…be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District….” I found this disturbing for two reasons. First, the secular reason: an organization such as the Church, which receives the benefit of tax-exempt status in the United States, is acting presumptuously when it wields this economic latitude afforded it by the State to influence public policy in such a manner. On the surface of it, this seems to set a dangerous precedent for the involvement of Church with State, which is distressing to me as an American citizen and believer in our secular founding principles.
The second reason for this issue piquing my interest is that it seems to directly contradict the teachings of the Church. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, part 3, section 1, chapter 1, under the Theological Virtues is stated very clearly the importance of charity:
The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it. But "faith apart from works is dead" when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.
The reasoning behind my concern over what appears to be an inconsistency in the implementation of this moral principle is only secondarily that it gives the impression of the Church as an institution deciding to “take its ball and go home,” so to speak. My primary concern here is that if the Church does decide to go through with this ultimatum and put a stop to its social programs and charities in that diocese, the body of the Church itself - the individual men and women who make up the Church - will be left without the Church as a vehicle for their own drive to act charitably and care for their fellow humans.
If the Church, as an institution, decides to rescind its charitable promise in that area, does that also absolve (and in fact act to discourage) the charitable works of the Church as a collective of individuals? If so, this would seem to drive an immense wedge between the hierarchy of the Church and the body of the Church itself. Frankly, I do not see how this can end well for the Church. Good people will wish to give to the world regardless of the degree to which their institutions are willing to facilitate this giving, but it is only sensible that those who wish to give most will tend to move away from an institution that has become a hurdle and move toward other institutions, either religious or secular, that will better facilitate and focus those charitable energies. I understand that the Church does have a social agenda, but is the matter of policy over same-sex marriages so important that it is worth actually increasing the cost and difficulty of doing good works to those who wish to do so, in a time when so many of us are already stretched so thin in terms of what time and money we can afford to spend?
The second policy decision that I would like to address was reported in the Providence Journal (projo.com) on November 23rd, in an article titled, “Kennedy: Barred from Communion.” This article is about Rhode Island Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy who, in an interview, alleged that Bishop Thomas J. Tobin chose to penalize him for his stance on abortion rights as a political official by preventing him from participating in the ritual of Communion.
I’ll grant that I do understand the position of the Church on abortion and I do not wish to bring the debate over abortion itself into the scope of this letter. I also understand that the Church places the concept of morality above that of popularity, a position that I can respect even if I do not entirely agree with the details. However, I once again have two concerns about this action. First, while I did mention that the Church is not bound by popular opinion, Representative Kennedy is, in fact, bound by the laws of the State to represent his constituency with his congressional vote.
In principle, Kennedy’s decisions on public policy should have less to do with his own opinions than those of his constituents. However, if he allows his vote to be swayed by the punitive actions of Bishop Tobin, he betrays the trust of the people he has sworn to serve. In effect, this action seems to amount to a rather cruel form of political bribery, except that instead of bargaining with material wealth, Bishop Tobin is bargaining with the fate of Kennedy’s immortal soul. Kennedy is now in a position where he must either betray the public trust or betray his religion. Capitulation in either direction is damning, as he breaks an oath either way.
My second concern with this issue is that, while my understanding is that Bishops have a certain level of autonomy over these matters, the precedent set by this one Bishop will have non-Catholics once again fearing to elect Catholics into public office, even as the most well-known Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, came under much public scrutiny for his own Catholicism before being elected as President of the United States. If the Church is going to attempt to hold such direct sway over our Representatives, yet the Church does not represent the people as a whole, then why on Earth would any non-Catholic ever elect a Catholic into office, only to see him bend to the will of the Church on matters that we feel are important?
As a secular person, if it were common knowledge that an affiliation with the Church meant that a politician’s ability to represent the people was effectively compromised simply by virtue of his being Catholic, I would absolutely never vote for such an individual. The same is true of politicians with clearly evident allegiances to business interests or other organizational special interests. Again, this seems to bode very poorly for the Church. The ramifications could be very far-reaching. Does the Church acknowledge these possibilities in any way?
The third and final issue that I would like to address in this letter was reported by the news desk of a blog by the name of FireDogLake in an article titled, “Catholic Bishops Enact Plan For ‘300,000 Terri Schiavos’.” I’ll quote the first paragraph of that article here:
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops released an “Ethical and Religious Directive” this month that would ban any Catholic hospital, nursing home or hospice program from removing feeding tubes or ending palliative procedures of any kind, even when the individual has an advance directive to guide their end-of-life care. The Bishops’ directive even notes that patient suffering is redemptive and brings the individual closer to Christ.
The Church has apparently decided to preempt the lawful wishes of those whom tragedy befalls in such a way as to put them into a persistent vegetative state or in some other way requiring them to be placed under artificial life support with little to no hope of recovery. The article mentions, and it is well-known, that there are areas where there are no alternatives to Catholic-run hospitals, effectively placing patients in a position of being overruled by a regional monopoly on a lawfully made decision about the type of care that they should receive under such circumstances.
This was not a decision that was handed down by authorities on medicine. This was a policy decision made by theologians, not doctors. This decision runs contrary to the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath, which embodies the spirit of modern medicine itself as practiced by those professionals who truly understand the human body and its frailties and are met continuously with the sort of tragedies that ruin lives and families, as in the case of Terri Schiavo cited (in rather incendiary fashion, I grant) by the author of the article. The modern version of the Oath as rewritten in 1964 by Louis Lasagna has a passage that reads thus:
Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
While we may argue over the precise meaning of the phrase “play at God,” I think that the spirit of this message is very clear: that the role of a physician in the face of life and death is not that of a moral arbiter, but a facilitator of the body’s natural processes. Like politicians, medical doctors simply cannot be expected to act in the best interests of the patient, the patient’s family or the community at large when the standards of practice are handed down from a body of non-experts in the field of medicine whose purposes are solely to enforce a social and moralist agenda.
As a non-Catholic, I am deeply offended at the notion that I may, through simple accident of proximity and tragedy, end up in the care of a Catholic facility and treated in a manner not in accord with my wishes for the purpose of being brought closer to Christ through suffering. If someone’s wishes align to those of the Church then I see no problem, but for everyone else there is a definite conflict of interest. I want decisions about the care that I will receive to be between myself, my family and my physician, acting under the guidance of his knowledge and that of other professional physicians who have intimate, first-hand knowledge of the issues.
The thought of having unwanted weeks, months and years of unwanted and unaffordable torment thrust upon myself and my family due to this decision is tremendously frightening to me. It in no way inspires me with any kind of confidence in the Church, in fact having the opposite effect altogether and even inspiring a sense of revulsion. I am most likely not alone in this opinion. It is unjust at its very heart. However, as I’ve mentioned previously, I acknowledge that the Church has no obligation to appear just.
This brings me to a summary of what I perceive to be central to the issues above and the specific questions that I have for the Catholic Church and for you, if I may. In each of the policy decisions mentioned above, all of which happened in the month of November of this year, 2009, representatives of the Catholic Church have appeared to impose dogma upon people in such a way as to discriminate against members of the public, exert leverage over secular matters in order to enforce a social agenda, deny the lawful rights of citizens and hold nonbelievers to a set of moral standards to which they do not subscribe.
These issues have become known to me through friends and family who have considered themselves members of the Church, most of whom have left the Church due to disagreements over issues such as those above. They are not alone. An April 27th article in the U.S. News and World Report cites a Pew Forum poll that shows that four times as many Catholics are leaving the Church as are joining it. I don’t claim to know the particulars of enrollments at this time, but I simply cite the data to communicate what you almost certainly already know: that injustice, whether real or simply a mistaken perception, drives people away.
So my questions to you and to the Church are these:
- Does the policy of withdrawing from charitable works to impose the will of the Church upon political decision-makers represent a moral act, or is it a case of “two wrongs don’t make a right?” If the former, how is it moral to withdraw community support when the Church claims to be made up of the community and to exist in service thereto? If the latter, by what process is this decision acknowledged as a mistake of political posturing and then undone or corrected?
- How do precedents set by individual members of the Church hierarchy in one region effect future decisions made in other regions? For instance, does Bishop Tobin’s decision about Patrick Kennedy indicate the beginning of a trend or pattern in the Church here in the United States? Would you as an Archbishop be compelled to revoke a parishioner’s privileges within your diocese, with all the ramifications thereof discussed above?
- If the Church is going to impose its will on doctors and patients, even if that will directly contradicts the lawful will of the patient, then does the Church accept the possibility of free-market competition with no such compunction driving it out of the hospital business? Does the Church have any kind of statement about the possibility that it in areas where its medical facilities hold a regional monopoly, it may be directly jeopardizing the lawful rights and wishes of individuals who do not hold Catholic beliefs?
- The three questions above lead to a final question about the nature of the Church as a formally recognized religious institution in the United States. Discrimination, obtaining political leverage, pushing agendas and engaging in other practices that put the needs of the institution ahead of those of the citizenry are acceptable within the political, social and economic framework of the United States, so long as those institutions are private. However, as a tax-exempt organization, the Church operates, to a degree, under the financial auspices of the people of the nation. The discrimination shown by members of the Church hierarchy, along with all of the posturing and draconian measures, does not befit a public institution, and a fair argument can be made that any institution that receives special economic status is, at least in part, a public institution. How does the Church view themselves with respect to their State-recognized, tax-exempt status? Does the Church feel that it owes any fairness or equal treatment to the public for this privilege of operation outside of the boundaries that we place around private enterprise? Is it the opposite thereof, that the Church feels that it is owed far more than it is given by our society? Or is the relationship more dynamic and complex than simple quid pro quo with the populace (and if so, can you elucidate on this)?
- Having covered the general questions about the nature of the Church itself, I will ask a few personal questions. Please feel free, but not compelled, to answer. My question to you is this: do you consider the actions and decisions of a member or members of the Church hierarchy to be inherently moral (or in themselves demarcative of morality)? Would you personally stifle the participation of parishioners in your community under circumstances such as those mentioned herein? Would you influence their political decisions by denying them your intercession with Jesus Christ? Does it seem to you that people actually are leaving the Church in numbers such as those indicated above? If so, what do you think makes them leave? If not, why do they stay?
Sincerely,
Lucas Parker
PS: All of the articles mentioned in this letter were found online. What follows is a complete bibliography.
Bibliography
Boorstein, Michelle, and Tim Craig. "Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum." The Washington Post. November 12, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111116943.html (accessed November 26, 2009).
Dayen, David. "Catholic Bishops enact plan for “300,000 Terri Schiavos”." FDL News Desk. November 24, 2009. http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/11/24/catholic-bishops-enact-plan-for-300000-terri-schiavos/ (accessed November 26, 2009).
Gilgoff, Dan. "Does the American Catholic Church have a numbers problem?" U.S. News and World Report. April 27, 2009. http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/04/27/does-the-american-catholic-church-have-a-numbers-problem.html (accessed November 26, 2009).
Lasagna, Louis. "The Hippocratic Oath: Modern Version." Nova | Doctor's Diaries. 1964. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html (accessed November 26, 2009).
Libreria Editrice Vaticana. "Catechism of the Catholic Church." Vatican: the Holy See. November 4, 1993. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc/index.htm (accessed November 26, 2009).
Mulligan, John E. "Kennedy: Barred from Communion." The Providence Journal. November 23, 2009. http://www.projo.com/news/johnmulligan/KENNEDY_COMMUNION_11-22-09_7PGHOLP_v17.38abb89.html (accessed November 25, 2009).