Humanae Vitae and Birth Control: Practices and Perspectives from the Catholic University College of Ghana

The Roman Catholic Church, through the Magisterium teaches the faithful the right way to Christian living. Controversial among these teachings was Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth) which indicates that the use of contraceptives is incompatible with the Christian message. This study situated the practices and perspectives of contraception in the context of Humanae Vitae. It then engaged students of the Catholic University College of Ghana on their practices and perspectives regarding the subject matter. The acceptance of the teachings of Humanae Vitae continues to be a critical test case for the Catholic and Christians not only in Europe and the Americas but also in Ghana. Keywords: The Church[1], Humanae Vitae, Magisterium, Contraception, Birth control. [1] In this paper, The Church refers to the Holy Roman Catholic Church

Euthanasia in Ghana Today

Euthanasia is a least explored concept in Ghana. This study sought responses from 1028 respondents in Sunyani. Principal to questions posed was the right to die, circumstances that may necessitate aiding or allowing one to ask his or her life to be taken, legalization of euthanasia and the relationship that may exist between respondent demographic characteristics and their responses. The levels of agreements and disagreements in favor of the defense of life irrespective of the circumstance stood in stark contrast to what is recorded in other countries. 83.7 percent of respondents disagreed on the inducement of death for merciful reason which is also reflected in respondents’ belief that under any circumstance the physician should try to protect the life of the patient. On the right to die, 78 percent of the respondents reported a disagreement to the proposition of one having the right to choose to die. Consequently 70.2 percent of the respondents disagreed that there should be legal avenues by which an individual could pre-authorize in the case of an intolerable disease. Of statistical significance (p< 0.5) were  respondent’s gender and inducing death for merciful reasons; highest educational attainment and support to legalize euthanasia; ethnic background and the right to choose to die; ethnic background and inducing death for merciful reasons; age of respondent and right to choose to die; and one’s religious affiliation and inducing death for merciful reasons. These correlations provide some similarities to studies in Europe especially with regard to gender, educational level, age and religious affiliation. Keywords: Euthanasia, death, dying, Ghana, religio

Humanae Vitae and Birth Control: Practices and Perspectives from the Ghanaian Catholic

The Roman Catholic Church, through the Magisterium teaches the faithful the right way to Christian living. Controversial among these teachings was Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae(On the Regulation of Birth) which indicates that the use of contraceptives is incompatible with the Christian message. This study situated the practices and perspectives of contraception in the context of Humanae Vitae.It then engaged students of the Catholic University College of Ghana on their practices and perspectives regarding the subject matter.The acceptance of the teachings of Humanae Vitae continues to be a critical test casefor the Catholic and Christians not only in Europe and the Americas but also in Ghana. Keywords: The Church[1], Humanae Vitae, Magisterium, Contraception, Birth control. [1]In this paper, The Church refers to the Holy Roman Catholic Church

The Formation of the Ghanaian Catholic Laity as Agents of the New Evangelization

The Seventh General Assembly of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops[1], commonly known as the Synod on the Laity[2], was held in Rome from 1st October to 30th October 1987. Since this Synod the Church has paid more attention to the vocation of the laity especially in the mission of salvation for all. Following the aforementioned, in December, 1988 Christifideles Laici – an Apostolic Exhortation was signed by Pope John Paul II. He declared this as a fruit of the Synod process and “a faithful and coherent expression of it,[3]” having explicitly quoted about forty-five out of the fifty-four of the Synod’s final propositions. As the most important papal statement on the laity since the Second Vatican Council, this document has occasioned considerable publicity, aroused immense interest, inspired so much passion, and generated numerous treatises and comments from both experts and practitioners. [1]The institution of the Synod of Bishops was created by Pope Paul VI in 1965 aiming at addressing issues that are pastoral in character, urgent, and of importance for the universal Church. The word “Synod” means “a journey together.” This Ordinary Synod differs from the Extraordinary Synods held in 1969 and 1985 in that they have more participants, have fuller agenda and take place over a longer period. [2]Addressing the Italian Episcopal Conference in May 1985 John Paul II recalled the importance that Vatican II had placed on the laity’s contribution to the mission of the Church in the world and gave two reasons for choosing the vocation and the mission of the laity as the topic of the 1987 Ordinary Synod of Bishops, the first being “the increased awareness of the role that the laity play in the work of salvation,” and the second relating to the need to respond to the suggestion of many bishops throughout the world. See John Paul II, “[Address to the Italian Episcopal Conference:] Propose Suitable Pastoral Lines in the Light of Loreto Discourse,” L’Osservatore Romano (30 September 1985) 9. [3]Christifideles Laici, no. 2

Proxemics of screen mediation: engagement with reading on screen manifests as diminished variation due to self-control, rather than diminished mean distance from screen

Objective: Burgoon's theory of conversational involvement suggest that when people engage with a person, they will move slightly closer to them, often subtly and subconsciously. However, some studies have failed to extend this to human-computer interaction. Our hypothesis is that during online reading, engagement is associated with an expenditure of effort to hold the head upright, still and centrally. Method: We presented to 27 participants (ages 21.00 ± 2.89, 15 female) seated in front of 47.5x27 cm monitor two reading stimuli in a counterbalanced order, one (interesting) based on a best selling novel and the other (boring) based on European Union banking regulations. The participants were video-recorded during their reading while they wore reflective motion tracking markers. The markers were video-tracked off-line using Kinovea 0.8. Results: Subjective VAS ratings showed that the stimuli elicited the bored and interested states as expected. Video tracking showed that the boring stimulus (compared to the interesting reading) elicited a greater head-to-screen velocity, a greater head-to-screen distance range, a greater head-to-screen distance standard deviation, but not a further away head-to-screen mean distance. Conclusions: The more interesting reading led to efforts to control the head to a more central viewing position while suppressing head fidgeting

Experience design: video without faces increases engagement but not empathy

Counter to prior claims that empathy is required for higher levels of engagement in human-computer interaction, our team has previously found that, in an analysis of 844 stimulus presentations, empathy is sufficient for high engagement, but is not necessary. Here, we ran a carefully controlled study of human-computer interactions with musical stimuli --- with and without visuals, and with and without recognizable people -- to directly test whether we could design an engaging stimulus that did not elicit empathy, by avoiding human faces or personal interaction. We measured subjective responses by visual analogue scale and found that the faceless stimulus was as engaging as the face-containing stimulus, but much less empathy-provoking. Therefore, we propose that empathy and engagement be considered independently during interaction design, because they are not monotonically related

The complex relationship between empathy, engagement and boredom

In human computer interactions — especially gaming — the role of empathy has been mooted as a necessary prerequisite for higher levels of engagement and immersion. More recently other forms of engagement, including intellectual/cognitive engagement, have been proposed. In this study we present a carefully controlled dataset of human-computer interactions with a wide range of stimuli that ranged from highly engaging to boring to test these two theories. Analyzing 844 response sets to visual analogue scales (VAS) for empathy, interest, boredom, and engagement, we found that high empathy was sufficient for high engagement but is not necessary, whilst the converse was not true. We also found that empathy and boredom were incompatible with each other, but low levels of either were permissive rather than causal to the other. We conclude that there is no monotonic relationship between increasing empathy and engagement; either empathy is a sufficient (but not necessary) cause of engagement, or engagement is a necessary precursor to high empathy

Resource governance dynamics: The challenge of 'new oil' in Uganda

Resource governance norms have evolved at multiple scales to counter the potential negative socio-economic, environmental and institutional impacts of the extractive industries. Advocates of these 'good governance' initiatives have sought to mainstream transparency throughout the extractive industries value chain and implement pro-poor projects at the site level. However, these types of resource governance interventions often fall short of their promised development benefits. Poorly understood is how the process of resource extraction and the expectation of supposed revenue windfalls affect the governance dynamics of host countries and localities. Using a qualitative and inductive approach this paper highlights emerging spaces of governance within a new petro-state, Uganda. The research findings highlight four significant governance gaps: lack of coherence among civil society organisations (CSOs); limited civil society access to communities and the deliberate centralisation of oil governance; industry-driven interaction at the local level; and weak local government capacity. The ad hoc and fragmented modes of resource governance in the oil bearing regions, particularly related to transparency and corporate social responsibility activities, do not bode well for this new petro-state's development trajectory. By identifying how spaces of resource governance emerge in new resource contexts, more proactive and timely interventions can be designed and implemented by state and non-state actors