Long ago, in my youth, I entertained daydreams about being rich. Actually, the daydreams entertained me. I think most everyone does at some point in their lives – the trappings of modern living: fine homes, flashy cars, exotic vacations. At the time, I hadn’t regained the fervor of my faith. You could say that my faith consisted of striking it rich and retiring early. For a time, I participated in one of those multi-level marketing schemes – it was a telephone long-distance thing, whose name escapes me at the moment (that tells you how long ago it was) – that promised the rewards of monetary fulfillment for years and years if you built up a large enough base of customers and “distributors”. It never really worked for me, so after a couple years, I dropped out – in the end, I managed to recoup my initial investment, barely.
For a number of years, I followed the mutual fund market like a hawk, balancing my portfolio, researching fund families and running numbers through investment calculators like a gambler drops quarters at the slots. Dreams of amassing a fortune via the Eighth Wonder of The World – Compounding Interest – and the Ninth one, too – the US Stock Market – started to dissipate over time, right around 9/11, as priorities reoriented themselves, and then completely disintegrated amidst the 2008 crash. I’m still saving for the future – retirement, kids’ college, etc. – but I don’t pore over the stock columns or purchase the investment magazines anymore. Now I just blog for money. LOL!
No, nowadays I work hard at my job and we live within our means. I’ve no regrets regarding the unrealized dream of amassing obscene wealth – it probably would have erupted as a great stumbling block to being authentically Catholic, knowing me – and am content with the blessings that God has generously showered upon me and my family.
I don’t begrudge those who have wealth – earned or inherited – unless, of course, it’s come about through ill-gotten means. It’s all God’s anyways. Sure, some are going to say “What need does God have for money?” and the obvious answer is “None.” But there are a whole lot of His children throughout the world who could benefit from it, even the loose change jangling in their pockets and purses. God spreads His gifts as He pleases, and that includes treasure as well as talent, and on the day we depart the Earth, we will have to give an account on whether or not w used those treasures to build up His kingdom and take care of the less fortunate and destitute.
Which has me concerned for Warren Buffett. A man of nearly-unimaginable wealth, he announced some time ago that he intends to donate 99% of his estate to charity – and his estate has been estimated to stand at about $47 Billion. A lot of good can be done with that sort of coin.
And I’m sure that some good will be done. But according to this story at Catholic Online, it appears that Mr. Buffett has decided to spend some of his wealth on an extremely evil program.
Buffett Secretly Spending Millions on Abortion Med-School Scheme – NY Times
OMAHA, Nebraska (LifeSiteNews.com) – Billionaire investing mogul Warren Buffett has been secretly backing a campaign to combat the decrease in doctors who are training as abortionists and to bring abortion into the mainstream of medicine, revealed the New York Times this week.In her NYT magazine cover story, journalist Emily Bazelon describes how abortion “rights” activists are working to “recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one.”
The piece, entitled “The New Abortion Providers,” claims that abortionists and the pro-abort lobby are trying to dispel the image of the “greedy, butchering ‘abortionist’.” “The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women – embraced rather than shunned,” writes Bazelon.
The strategy, she says, aims at moving abortuaries away from stand-alone facilities into hospitals and encourages family physicians to offer abortions within their practices.
She describes two training programs for abortionists that are central to this strategy. The first, called the “Family Planning Fellowship,” is a two-year post-residency program designed to further equip doctors for providing abortions and contraception. She says this fellowship is now being offered at 21 university campuses. The second is called the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program, which aims to supply medical schools with funds to train ob/gyn residents in providing abortions. So far, this program has funded 58 campuses in the U.S. and Canada.
“The money for the Ryan and the Family Planning Fellowship comes from one foundation and from one family,” writes Bazelon. “The donor has chosen to remain anonymous, which helps to explain why there’s been so little publicity about the pro-choice strategy of bringing abortion into academic medicine. It has been covered by a veil of semisecrecy.”
But as the two training programs have grown, this anonymous donor has become more widely known, she says. “In the course of my reporting, two doctors who had not done the fellowship themselves, but who work in universities, volunteered to me that the money for the programs comes from the Buffett Foundation,” she wrote.
According to Bazelon, the Buffett Foundation’s tax records reveal that most of its spending is allocated to “abortion and contraception advocacy and research.” The Foundation has given tens of millions to Planned Parenthood and Ipas, as well as millions to other pro-abortion groups like Catholics for Choice. Buffett has pledged to give away 99% of his estimated $47 billion assets, with most of it going to the Gates Foundation, which is infamous for its avowed emphasis on population control.
So to combat the dropping numbers of abortionists, Buffett has been secretly funding programs to train doctors to do abortions in hospitals and within their practices rather than have stand-alone abortuaries. Buffett is an avowed believer in population control, but it’s egregiously sad that so much money is being spent to further the cause of the Culture of Death rather than help mothers with unexpected pregnancies. Or support groups and organizations that promote adoption.
This story only proves, once again, that liberals and progressives are not really interested in finding common ground with pro-life groups, because there’s too much money in the abortion industry to effectively reduce those numbers. Remember – Buffett is an investor, first and foremost, and although he’s providing the funding for this program, a part of me thinks that he’s looking at this as an investment, so for him, there has to be some sort of positive return. Either financially, or as another step towards his ideology of keeping human population in check.
In some twisted way, Buffett possibly believes that funding this program is going to help poor exploited women who don’t have easy access to abortion. The reality is, this plan will only serve to further exploit them and continue to treat the unborn as a problem to get rid of, rather than as a fellow citizen who needs assistance. A man of Buffett’s wealth could support every single Problem Pregnancy Center in America for years to come, and be a great force for the Culture of Life. His legacy would last much longer would he stand for Life – not to mention contribute towards the salvation of his soul – than by contributing to the Soulless Machine Of Death. I’m not holding my breath that he will change, but…miracles do happen.
So, along with praying for Buffett’s change of heart, I need to check my current mutual funds to make sure none of them invest in Berkshire-Hathaway. I may not be a man of means to the extent of Buffett, but I have to be sure that my paltry means aren’t being used to bring about unjustifiable ends.
