The Lutherans Know It Is Our Religious Freedom at Stake!

I watched and heard Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison's testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform yesterday morning at our First Things together.  

 

Wow!

Dr. Harrison is the President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  He testified on Thursday, Feb. 16., to discuss the recent U. S. Health and Human Services ruling mandating that all organizations no matter what their moral beliefs must provide an insurance mechanism that funds, without deductibles, abortion inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. On behalf of the LCMS, Harrison spoke to the issue and how it violates our freedoms of religion and conscience. 

The Synod President also issued a statement on February 3rd, 2012 about religious freedom in response to U.S. Department's of Health and Human Services requiring religious employers to cover contraceptives, even those that can kill unborn children.

Nor are these solid Lutherans sucked in by the President's supposed "compromise:" Dr. Harrison said his  church remains ‘deeply concerned’ about health plan mandate despite the White House statement.

It is difficult to know how to react to the "compromise."  Is the White House completely ignorant of economics or is it just blatantly cynical?  The compromise allows organizations and companies(?) who morally object to exclude the mandated coverage from their plan, but then must direct their employees to riders which the insurer must provide free of charge.  The first law of economics is TANSTAAFL: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."  As Robert Heinlein portrayed so well in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, somebody pays.  The insurance company, forbidden to charge directly for sterilization, abortion inducing drugs, and contraception, will smear the costs into its rates.   





 

Stupak Steps Down

April 9th, 2010: Naftali Bendavid reports in the Wall Street Journal that Congressman Stupak will not run again.  Stupak was the leader of the pro-life democrats in the battle over the health care finance bill.

"Last month, when the House took its final vote on the Senate bill, Mr. Stupak went along with slightly less restrictive language requiring that women write a separate check to their insurer for abortion coverage. He did so with the promise that Mr. Obama would sign his executive order, which he subsequently did. When Mr. Stupak's agreement became known early on the day of the vote, opponents of the health bill knew they'd lost."


"Mr. Stupak, leading a group of other anti-abortion House Democrats, forced Democratic leaders to include strict anti-abortion language in the House health care bill. He ultimately agreed to the slightly less restrictive Senate bill, with the agreement that President Barack Obama would sign an executive order specifying that no federal funds would go to abortion.

"Since then, he has been vilified by both sides. Mr. Stupak has faced unrelenting hostility from the abortion rights community, which sees the new provisions as a major setback for women. Anti-abortion activists have depicted Mr. Stupak as a traitor who caved to Democratic leaders at the last minute."
"

It's Now Four Polls showing a Shift to a Pro-Life Majority

On May 20, 2009, Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com Editor, wrote, "Fourth Poll This Month Shows U.S. Public Opinion Trending Pro-Life on Abortion".

A Question for Fr. Jenkins

Rhetoric is easy on the internet or if you are a commencement speaker. You do not have to worry about the hearer punching you in the face if you are uncivil.

If President Obama's address to Notre Dame was a model of civility, Dr. Patricia McQuire, President of Trinity University in Washington was not. Judge for your self whether her speech to the graduating class displayed "self-righteous condemnation." I wonder if she counts Notre Dame alumna Lacy Dodd among those who "defend the rights of the unborn but have no charity toward the living." Would she count her among "the grand inquisitors" and "uber-guardians." Apparently the good doctor will brook no dissent from the imperial Presidency of a Catholic University.

In contrast, Ms. Dodd, who spoke at the Grotto Sunday, asks Fr. Jenkins a question that gets heart of the issue civilly and powerfully. Although I first learned of her remarks from Dr. Pia de Solenni, her full talk is back home at First Things:

"For many members of the Notre Dame Class of 2009, the uproar surrounding the university’s decision to honor Barack Obama with this year’s commencement address, and to bestow on him a doctorate of laws, has provoked strong feelings [read on]"

Will Obama At Notre Dame Be the Selma, Alabama Of the Pro-Life Movement?

On March 21, 1965, 3,200 civil rights protesters marched from Selma, Alabama singing "We Shall Overcome" and heading for Montgomery. Their numbers grew to 25,000 when they eventually reached Montgomery. Selma had been the scene of a two year effort to register black voters and desegregate public lunch counters.

Many people look to that march, the culmination of the civil rights movement's protests and its courage in the face of violence and retaliation in Selma, as a turning point in American history. For many Americans at that time, the denial of Blacks' civil rights was the defining moral issue of the age. This courageous minority eventually captured the imagination of the nation and brought about fundamental reform. To this day, there are individual Americans of my generation who look back at the March from Selma as life changing. It certainly was nation changing.

Notre Dame University honored President Barak Obama with a Doctor of Laws and its choice of him as its commencement speaker. Many Catholics saw this honoring of a man whose actions contribute to further deaths of the unborn as a dishonoring of the charism of the premier Catholic University in America.

Two thousand five hundred protesters gathered at the Grotto for prayer and in the quadrangle for mass and a peaceful protest. Many more protested outside the campus and scores were arrested on Notre Dame's campus. Among the arrests were eighty year old Father Father Norman U. Weslin founder of Lambs for Christ, Alan Keyes, and Norma McCorvey. Norma McCovey is the "Jane Roe" the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that abolished America's abortion laws.

Many people, indeed most people, in America do not view abortion as the defining moral issue of our age. That is true of most people who identify themselves as Catholics. History often has a very different perspective from that of the majority in any given time and place. It would be ironic if America's first Black President occasioned the protests that history looked back on as the Selma, Alabama of the Pro-Life movement: the turning point in the nation's treatment of its most vunerable citizens' civil rights.

We Are Now A Pro Life Nation

Bill Pascoe in CQpolitics reports that the latest Gallup poll shows those who identify themselves as "pro life" now out number those who identify themselves as "pro choice" 51 percent to 42 percent.

Mary Ann Glendon Tells Notre Dame, "No."

Declining Notre Dame: A Letter from Mary Ann Glendon

By Mary Ann Glendon

Sunday, April 26, 2009, 9:30 AM

April 27, 2009
The Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
University of Notre Dame

Dear Father Jenkins,

When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame’s most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.

Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,

Mary Ann Glendon

Mary Ann Glendon is Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A member of the editorial and advisory board of First Things, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican from 2007 to 2009.

Keep In Touch with the Campus Groups that Are Opposing Honoring President Obama's Pro Abortion Policies

A coalition of twelve student groups have joined to protest Notre Dame's granting an honorary degree to President Barak Obama. Click on NDResponse's web site. In this internet age, the pro life students and faculty are not hiding their light under a bushel basket.

Ten Notre Dame Priests of the Congregation of Holy Cross Object to Honoring Obama As Creating "Moral Confusion"

From the Notre Dame student Newspaper, The Observer:

Work to maintain Catholic traditions

By: Letter to the Editor

Posted: 4/8/09

We write as priests of the Congregation of Holy Cross and as proud graduates of the University of Notre Dame to voice our objection to the University's decision to honor President Barack Obama by inviting him to deliver this year's Commencement address and by conferring on him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

We wish to associate ourselves with and encourage those courageous students and treasured alumni who, while deeply loving Notre Dame, vigorously oppose this sad and regrettable decision of the University administration.

It is our deep conviction that Notre Dame should lead by word and deed in upholding the Church's fundamental teaching that human life must be respected and protected from the moment of conception. In so doing the University must take seriously the 2004 instruction of the U.S. Catholic Bishops that "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

We especially regret the fissure that the invitation to President Obama has opened between Notre Dame and its local ordinary and many of his fellow bishops. We express our deep gratitude to Bishop John D'Arcy for his leadership and moral clarity. We ask that the University give renewed consideration to Bishop D'Arcy's thoughtful counsel which always has Notre Dame's best interests at heart.

The University pursues a dangerous course when it allows itself to decide for and by itself what part of being a Catholic institution it will choose to embrace. Although undoubtedly unintended, the University administration's decision portends a distancing of Notre Dame from the Church which is its lifeblood and the source of its identity and real strength. Such a distancing puts at risk the true soul of Notre Dame.

We regret that our position on this issue puts us at odds with our brother priest in Holy Cross, Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C. Yet, in this instance, for the good of Notre Dame and the Congregation of Holy Cross, we cannot remain silent. Notre Dame's decision has caused moral confusion and given many reason to believe that the University's stance against the terrible evil of abortion is weak and easily trumped by other considerations.

We prayerfully request that Fr. Jenkins and the Fellows of the University, who are entrusted with responsibility for maintaining its essential character as a Catholic institution of higher learning, revisit this matter immediately. Failure to do so will damage the integrity of the institution and detract from all the good work that occurs at Notre Dame and from the impressive labors of its many faithful students and professors.

We offer these views as we enter Holy Week, recalling the triumph of Christ's holy cross. As "men with hope to bring" we are confident that Notre Dame may yet give true honor to its patroness, and witness to Her Son, through its commitment to the sanctity of life.



Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C.

Stephen M. Koeth, C.S.C.

Gregory P. Haake, C.S.C.

Daniel J. Parrish, C.S.C.

Michael B. Wurtz, C.S.C.

Mark R. Ghyselink, C.S.C.

Terrence P. Ehrman, C.S.C.

John A. Herman, C.S.C.

Ronald J. Wasowski, C.S.C.

Vincent A. Kuna, C.S.C.

Holy Cross Priests

April 7

© Copyright 2009 The Observer

George Weigel: An Honorary Degree Is Not The Same As an Invitation to Dialogue

Why might orthodox Catholics be upset with Notre Dame's decision to honor President Barak Obama with an honorary degree?

George Weigel addresses this in the Chicago Tribune, "When a university invites a prominent personality to deliver a commencement address and accept an honorary degree, a statement is being made to graduates, students, faculty, parents, alumni and donors: 'This is someone whose work is worth emulating.' The invitation, in other words, is not to a debate, or to the opening of some sort of ongoing conversation. The invitation and the award of an honorary degree are a university's stamp of approval on someone's life and accomplishment.

"Which is precisely why the University of Notre Dame, which claims to be America's premier Catholic institution of higher learning, made an egregious error in inviting President Barack Obama to address its May commencement and accept an honorary doctorate of laws degree."

Francis J. Beckwith is the 2008–2009 Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture at the University of Notre Dame, and professor of philosophy and church-state studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Portions of this essay were delivered by Prof. Beckwith on March 28, 2009 at the University of Notre Dame for the 2009 Notre Dame Right to Life Collegiate Conference.

Is this simple a matter of disagreement? a difference of opinion?

No. The President has already taken actions that advance an evil which the Second Vatican Council called "an unspeakable crime" [Gaudium et Spes]. Weigel elaborates: "The president has put the taxpayers of the United States back into the business of paying for abortions abroad. He has expanded federal funding for embryo-destructive stem-cell research [in contradistinction to non embryonic stem cell research] and defended that position in a speech that was a parody of intellectually serious moral reasoning. The Obama administration threatens to reverse federal regulations that protect the conscience rights of Catholic and other pro-life health-care professionals."

The Tribune published Weigel's piece with one by Professor Douglas W. Kmiec as a kind of debate over Notre Dame's decision. You can click through the Catholic News Service's coverage of it to get to Kmiec's arguments.

On the magazine's blog ("On the Square"), Stephen Barr, the physicist and frequent contributor to First Things, writes an intellectual reaction colored by the fact that his son is to be among the graduating class at the commencement.

Barr puts it plainly in perspective, "Abortion is a defining issue of our time, in the way that slavery was in the mid-nineteenth century and segregation and racial discrimination were in the mid-twentieth century. Overlooking the pro-abortion views of a politician now would be analogous to overlooking pro-slavery or segregationist views in those eras. Would Notre Dame have invited a champion of segregation to be a commencement speaker in the 1960s, however brilliant or talented, however well-meaning in other ways and on other issues he or she may have been?"

Barr concludes that Notre Dame, the premier Catholic brand, is willing to give Obama cover on this, the defining moral issue of our age, to secure the Faustian bargain of this world's acclaim. It is well we begin each Lent being reminded of the three temptations in the desert, representing the flesh, power, and fame.

Francis J. Beckwith is one of the foremost recent converts (actually a "revert") to Catholicism and the former head of the Evangelical Theological Society. Beckwith is the 2008–2009 Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture at the University of Notre Dame, and professor of philosophy and church-state studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. On March 28, 2009, he addressed the 2009 Notre Dame Right to Life Collegiate Conference. You will find his edited talk reproduced in "On the Square." His arguments are both theologically weighty and powerfully expressed

He ends quoting a the Reverend Martin Luther King's prophetic call for a return to the early church so "god intoxicated" it was neither intimidated nor impressed by the power and approval of this world. How different from today: "Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.

"But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth [and twenty-first] century."

Obama to the Vatican: Give Me Cover

I have met Austin Ruse and heard him speak. His wife, the former Cathleen Cleaver, chief pro-life spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is an even more dynamite paraclete for life than he is. What a couple!

He writes in The Catholic Thing, "A reliable source tells me that someone representing the Obama administration is about to put pressure on the papal nuncio to the United States to get Archbishop Raymond Burke to be quiet."

Now why does the President want to gag Cardinal Burke? You need a bit of background.

Katherine Sabelius is my governor. She was an early and effective supporter of Barak Obama who carried the Kansas caucuses very nicely. Sebelius is a professed Catholic whose views and actions on abortion among other issues are very pro-death. In addition to her legislative and administrative record, her association with Dr. George Tiller is notorious. He is one of the few late term abortionists in the country. His evil work occurs virtually within walking and certainly within easy praying distance of where we live. A jury has just voted to acquit Tiller of 19 counts of violating the state's abortion laws, but is now under investigation by the state medical board. He was one of the largest contributors to Sebelius's campaign and she in turn gave him the use of the Governor's mansion to host a fundraiser for his pro abortion organization.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Bishop of Kansas City, Kansas, is her bishop. He has privately counseled her on the threat to her soul of actively promoting abortion. He has admonished her privately not to present herself for communion and offered her counseling. She spurned his pastoral efforts. He then repeated his injunction publicly. Archbishop Naumann appears to be of that solid central European stock whose hard work tamed the Kansas plains.

President Obama has nominated Sebelius to head Health and Human Services. Naturally enough, if her pastor in Kansas has admonished her not to present herself for communion at home, the same advice applies in Washington, her new base of operations. If A, then B, as John Chamberlain used to say.

Does B follow A in cannon law? Yes it does according to Archbishop L. Burke, formerly archbishop of St. Louis, bishop of La Cross and now Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the cannon law equivalent to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Now candidate Obama got some cover on the abortion from the formation of some "pro abortion Catholic" (an oxymoron?) organizations such as Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance. They remind me of the popular front strategies of the old Communists. In these front groups they could always find "useful idiots" as Lenin described them.

Ruse tells us the Obama administration has commissioned a former Republican office holder to work behind the scenes to shut Burke up. More than one Catholic Blogger has used his blog to put Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" into the President's mouth.

And the call the Mexico City policy a gag rule!

Is Our Lady Weeping?

Notre Dame, for many America's flagship Catholic University, announced, "President Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of Notre Dame’s 164th University Commencement Ceremony at 2 p.m. May 17 (Sunday) in the Joyce Center on campus." As Senator Obama and presidential candidate, Notre Dame's commencement speaker had the most extreme pro abortion position in the Democratic Party which has become the party of abortion in America. As President he has already rescinded the Mexico City policy. The church has been quite clear that Catholic universities should not give public honors to those who are aiding and abetting the slaughter of the innocents. Maybe Father John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, does not consider Notre Dame to be a Catholic university. He did also allow the Vagina Monologues, albeit in a classroom setting.

The University will confer degrees on approximately 2,000 undergraduates, 420 MBA students and 200 Notre Dame Law School students. When President Obama speaks at the commencement, wouldn't it be grand if those grads catechised the speaker? What if vast majority of the grads in the audience had on their mortar boards a picture of a baby with a caption "Do I get a choice?"

The March For Life Is Today

Pray for the quarter million Americans marching in Washington today for the rights of babies in the womb.

Jennifer Harper tells us in the Washington Times that Nellie Gray "pines for some meaningful attention from the press." She a group of bloggers and others are meeting to develop new strategies for getting the word out. Our own Sam Brownback, (a Kansas Republican Senator) will be a featured speaker.

James Francis Cardinal Stafford on Life Under Obama

In a talk given on the fortieth anniversary, James Francis Cardinal Stafford, Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See, said that in the recent election an “America suffered a cultural earthquake.” Viewing the extreme abortion positions of incoming President Obama as a trial for Catholics, he warned that we will know the Garden of Gethsemane. The Catholic News Agency reproduced the text of Bishop Stafford's talk.

Pelosi's Catholicism

Nancy Pelosi (D,Calif.) is the Speaker of the House. Around the time of the Democrats convention in Denver she was on Meet the Press. She told us she is “ardent practicing Catholic.” She considers it thus proper to discuss her Catholicism in public: this is not a private matter. Apparently the liberals' doctrinaire separation of church and state rules do not forbid her expressing opinions on matters of theology. (See my prior posting: In Case You Are Wondering Why The Archbishop of Denver Was Not Asked to Pray an Invocation at the Democrats' Denver Convention.)

Archbishop Wuerl, the shepherd of Catholics in our nation's capital, also noticed Ms. Pelosi's foray into theology. The Hill's Bob Cusack reported, "Washington archbishop rips Pelosi on abortion." I would have written "Washington archbishop corrects Pelosi on abortion." That is his job after all. Archbishop Wuerl should know what the church has taught on abortion from the time of the apostles until now. He coauthored with Fr. Ronald Lawler the predecessor to The Catechism of the Catholic Church: The Teaching of Christ. He has written at least one book on the early church fathers and knows his stuff.

Kathryn Lopez, editor of NROnline, provides even more insight. She attended mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver Sunday night before the Convention. She tells us what she heard: “'If you’re Catholic and you disagree with your Church. What do you do? You change your mind.'

"So said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of the Catholic archdiocese of Denver."

Lopez goes on to examine some of Pelosi's public statements about her beliefs. Does Pelosi really believe in the Real Presence? Read Lopez's column and judge for your self.

I have long believed that the decline of Catholic morality, including the evil slime of the priestly abuse of children scandal, has been directly related to the rejection of apostolic teaching and a loss of belief in the Eucharist.

In Case You Are Wondering Why The Archbishop of Denver Was Not Asked to Pray an Invocation at the Democrats' Denver Convention

Many of us were told at Catholic colleges that past theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Augustine were unsure of when a baby became ensouled. This is sometimes adduced as evidence that the Christian tradition is unclear about whether abortion is wrong (strictly speaking at what point does abortion becomes murder.)

This is a red herring. The tradition is consistent from the start that abortion is evil, no matter how you resolve the scientific issue. The Didache (written before parts of the New Testament), Justin (second century) and other authorities on down through the ages are clear.

The Democrats are holding their convention in Denver as I write. The Democratic Party has asked neither the Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Denver's Archbishop nor his extremely capable and pious Auxiliary, James D. Conley to pray one of the traditional invocations at their convention. Their fidelity to the Church's teaching and their moral courage are too clear. They would be dangerous addressing the abortion Party in prayer.

But the two shepherds have not been quiet. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spouted theology on Meet the Press, these eminent and holy bishops responded with clarity and accuracy in an open letter to their flock:

ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE:
A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH IN NORTHERN COLORADO

To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:

Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.

Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:

"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition . . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."

Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:

"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."

Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."

Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.

Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that – alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief.

Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.

The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches.

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
+James D. Conley
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver
###

Bernard Nathanson's Aborting America

Bernard Nathanson is a most interesting man. He probably performed more abortions than any American alive before he had a change of heart. He was at the founding, if you will. Nathanson shows how the abortion lobby (for lack of a better term) targeted the Catholic church on one hand and convinced the woman’s movement that abortion should be a central tenet of its agenda on the other. (Prior to the second edition of Betty Friedan’s book, abortion was seen as anti-women. The suffragettes, women like Sojouner Truth and Susan B. Anthony, were solidly anti-abortion. They were part of the movement that past the laws outlawing abortion, most of which were enacted during the late nineteenth century.)

Eventually Nathanson came to the conclusion that what he was doing was evil. His intellectual and moral conversion was such an amazing turnaround that it would seem to be a miraculous confirmation of the power of prayer. (For every publicized case of violence at an abortion factory, there are the unpublicized tens of thousands praying for those involved in abortion: the women, the babies, the doctors, and the nurses.) His later conversion to Catholicism is perhaps even more shocking. Any novelist would reject as unbelievable a plot in which a leading Jewish intellectual atheist, Dr. Death himself and a mastermind of the abortion industry’s propaganda strategy, recants his beliefs, starts making pro-life movies, and ultimately becomes a Roman Catholic.

If you ever get a chance to speak, do hear him. But beware, his views are dangerous to the conventional wisdom!

Obama Is for Change: Does That Include Changing His Record?

Say a baby is born live from an abortion. The odds are against it, but it happens. Should the hospital preserve this victim of an "unsuccessful" abortion? Most of us out of common decency would answer, "yes."

A bill was submitted in Illinois to require the dictates of decency in the situation. Senator Obama was in the Illinois legislature at the time. Obama spoke against the legislation in 2001 and 2002 and single-handedly defeated it in committee in 2003.

A citizen spoke to him a few years later about the bill after he had left the state senate. Obama told him, “I would have voted for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois had it been worded the same as the federal bill. I think that’s the position the Democrats should take.”

According my source, "There’s just one thing he forgot to mention: Obama had stopped his committee from adding the federal wording."

Actions speak louder than words.

Actions Speak Louder than Words

Bill Clinton told us that he wanted abortion to be "legal, safe, and rare." Am I too cynical to note that he did little or nothing to make abortion "rare?" Adoption was not promoted. Chastity was not praised, much less promoted. The President had no clothes.

Senator Obama is sounding much the same.

He has announced a group called Catholics for Obama. Will McGurn has analyzed the make-up of this august body and his analysis is enlightening. He finds the best way to characterize these senators, governors, and congressmen is as "NARAL Catholics." NARAL is the National Abortion Rights League. If you think of it as some idealistic group of do-gooders, read Bernard Nathanson's inside account of NARAL's cynical beginning.

Here is how McGurn describes Obama's positions: "In a speech before Planned Parenthood, he declared that the right to an abortion is at stake in this election, and vowed that he would not yield on appointing judges that would uphold Roe v. Wade.

"Mr. Obama is for using tax dollars to fund abortions, and against restrictions on partial-birth abortion. In the Illinois Senate, he voted against legislation protecting a child who was born alive despite an abortion. In sum, if you want to know what Mr. Obama's policies mean, it's this: taxpayer-funded abortion on demand."

Perhaps you think McGurn is a right wing ideologue, he does write for the Wall Street Journal, that running dog of capitalism. What does Planned Parenthood say of Obama?

Planned Parenthood is America's largest company in the abortion business. Its New England branch endorsed Senator Barak Obama, the junior senator from Illinois: Nancy Mosher, the head of the New England affiliate [of Planned Parenthood], said "approving the decision to support Obama, who supports abortion funding at taxpayer expense and without any limits, was easy."

“Senator Obama has a long and consistent record of standing up for [abortion]," Mosher continued.

The head of Planned Parenthood of New England, said her group will work with the national organization to "educate voters about John McCain’s unacceptable record in regard to" abortion.

"In 25 years in Washington, John McCain has earned a zero percent voting record from Planned Parenthood," she said. "Senator McCain has also denounced Roe v. Wade as ‘bad law.'”

How do you make legal abortion "rare?"

Encourage adoptions, reduce red tape, promote a culture of life.

Senator McCain does not wear his personal life on his sleeve to borrow a metaphor from the Bard. Is he in favor of adoption? Ask Bridget, the daughter Mother Teresa ordered his wife Cindy to adopt. She is about eighteen years old now and very much a McCain. You can read an interview that touches on her in Dadmag.

Actions speak louder than words.

Can a Politician Be Pro Choice and Pro Abortion: Archbishop Has Proposed a Test

It is 1855. You have decided to vote for a politician who is "personally opposed to slavery, but pro choice on the issue." Your choosing him is based on his stands on all the other issues which in your judgment outweighs his support of the system of slavery. Could you explain your vote with a clean heart to a black man in manacles?

That is not how Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. puts it in response to "Roman Catholics for Obama" who quote him in their initial appeal. Chaput,a student of Ronald Lawler and a Capuchin, shepherds the Roman Catholics in the archdiocese of Denver which includes most of Northern Colorado. What he does say is morally and intellectually powerful. Read it in its entirety:

Click here to read Archbishop Chaput's statement on First Things.