Classy. Reeeeally classy.

The D. C. Abortion Fund thanks its donors with this handsome free gift.

Pope Francis' message to the Americas

The Pope delivered a fine special message to the Americas yesterday:

...When the image of the Virgin appeared on the tilma of Juan Diego, it was the prophecy of an embrace: Mary’s embrace of all the peoples of the vast expanses of America – the peoples who already lived there, and those who were yet to come. Mary’s embrace showed what America – North and South – is called to be: a land where different peoples come together; a land prepared to accept human life at every stage, from the mother’s womb to old age; a land which welcomes immigrants, and the poor and the marginalized, in every age. A land of generosity. 

That is the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it is also my message, the message of the Church. I ask all the people of the Americas to open wide their arms, like the Virgin, with love and tenderness.

Many people will quickly fasten onto the statement's explicit connection with immigration policies. Fewer will notice its explicit mention of abortion and euthanasia, or that these things are actually mentioned before the bit about welcoming immigrants, the poor, and the marginalized.

I'd like to point out that economic freedom such as the people of the United States have enjoyed for two centuries is also a form of embrace. People have flocked here from everywhere else because they had some justified confidence that if they offered goods or services with honesty and goodwill, they would be rewarded with personal prosperity, without facing insuperable barriers because of their race, their ethnicity, or who their parents were.

Mind you, I said insuperable. This is a fallen world. This side of Heaven, there is no perfect ubiquitous fairness or justice. There is only the daily struggle to make those things happen a little more often in our own families, neighborhoods, and businesses. 

That's the Catholic doctrine of Subsidiarity, and it is the friend, not the foe, of economic liberty.

Elections sure do have consequences

Many Catholics voted for Barack Obama despite his support for abortion-on-demand. After all, they told us, he's so good on Social Justice issues.

Many Catholics voted for Democratic senatorial candidates despite their support for abortion-on-demand. After all, they told us, they're so good on Social Justice issues.

Having predicted the end of the world a few years ago if Republicans altered the Senate's filibuster rules to allow President Bush's bench nominees to be confirmed, Democrats did exactly that last month, when faced with filibusters or threats thereof against President Obama's nominees. Republicans backed away from this so-called "nuclear option" in 2005. Democrats welcomed it in 2013.

The Catholics who re-elected President Obama enabled him to nominate the astonishingly pro-abortion Cornelia Pillard to the District of Columbia's Circuit Court. arguably the most influential Federal Court of Appeal in the country, since cases which concern the White House and the federal bureaucracy get heard there first. Little issues, like the HHS mandate, for example.

Then those Senators whom Catholics elected despite their pro-abortion record changed the Senate rules and confirmed Ms. Pillard with a bare majority of 51 votes, when it would formerly have taken 60.

So now, you good Catholics, we all have a new lifetime judge among whose milder pronouncements is this:

Antiabortion laws and other restraints on reproductive freedom not only enforce women’s incubation of unwanted pregnancies, but also prescribe a “vision of the woman’s role” as mother and caretaker of children in a way that is at odds with equal protection. Renewed attacks on abortion have turned attention to how the Equal Protection Clause, and the right to sex equality more generally, might advance reproductive self-determination.

She's also completely opposed to abstinence-based sex ed.

The abstinence-only approach is permeated with stereotyped messages and sex-based double standards about acceptable male and female sexual behavior and appropriate social roles. Public school teaching of gender stereotypes violates the constitutional bar against sex stereotyping and is vulnerable to equal protection challenge...

Catholics might want to remember that abstaining from sexual relations is exactly the Catholic Church's teaching on preventing unwanted pregnancy. Too bad that there's now a majority on the D.C. Circuit (it used to be evenly split between Democrats and Republicans) that thinks the Church's teaching is an affront to human rights.

And so the red tide of abortion will roll on, at a million dead children each year in the United States alone.

But I'll bet Ms. Pillard is so good on Social Justice issues...

Nelson Mandela, R.I.P.

The President of the USCCB has issued a statement mourning the passing of Nelson Mandela. You can read all of it here.

But a much better expression of Catholic witness was penned by Archbishop Tobin of Connecticut, as reported by LifeSite News:

“Many people around the world and in our own nation are mourning the loss of former South African President Nelson Mandela,” Bishop Tobin commented in a statement. “Indeed there is much to admire in Mandela’s long life and public service, particularly his personal courage and his stalwart defense of human rights. 

“There is part of President Mandela’s legacy, however, that is not at all praiseworthy, namely his shameful promotion of abortion in South Africa. In 1996 Mandela promoted and signed into law the ‘Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Bill’ that, according to the New York Times, ‘replaced one of the world’s toughest abortion laws with one of the most liberal.’” 

Tobin continues: “While we pray for the peaceful repose of President Mandela’s immortal soul and the forgiveness of his sins, we can only regret that his noble defense of human dignity did not include the youngest members of our human family, unborn children.”

To their great credit, the Catholic bishops of South Africa pointed out that same disconnect in Mandela's record. So did John Smeaton, a prominent pro-life leader in the United Kingdom:

“May God rest Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa who died last night,” he said. “But it is absolutely vital that Catholic leaders do not allow themselves to become respecters of persons, swept away by personality cults. Catholic leaders have a duty to stand up to public figures with  anti-life and anti-family records, however praiseworthy their record may be on other issues. The sanctity of human life and the dignity of the family are the foundation and guarantee of all other human rights.”

[Update]: Bishop Tobin is the Bishop of Rhode Island, not Connecticut. My bad.

About that Time magazine cover...

Much of the Catholic internet is abuzz with Pope Francis' selection as Time magazine's "Person of the Year." My take: Person of the Year is a recognition of notoriety, not of approval. But even if you think it's a positive thing, enjoy it while it lasts. The video below, from a riot demonstration by pro-abortion feminists outside a cathedral in the Pope's native Argentina, is an accurate expression of the pure hatred of Christ and His Church that bubbles just beneath the surface of Progressive niceness. In case it's not clear, the thing that gets set afire in the middle of the frame is an effigy of Pope Francis.



Michael Voris' post on this event has additional footage that shows how faithful Catholic men linked arms in a cordon around the cathedral to protect it, and absorbed without retaliation the verbal abuse and physical attacks heaped upon them by many in the crowd.



Now, those guys are real men, and real Catholics. How many of us American Catholic men, drowning in the lukewarm banality of the Church of Nice, still would have the guts to do what they did?

Still waiting...

Six years ago, I asked in this blog why Nancy Pelosi had still not been denied the Eucharist for her public, clear, and defiant persistence in supporting abortion in her congressional votes. Back then, we Catholics were told to be patient because the then-Archbishop of San Francisco was taking a "pastoral" approach to her correction.

Six years on, and Ms. Pelosi is still flaunting her leadership against even the slightest limitation upon abortion. No statement condemning her behavior has been forthcoming. No statement noting her self-excommunication under Canon Law and consequent inability to receive the Eucharist has been forthcoming. No repentance. Not even an acknowledgement that her actions are in contradiction to Church doctrine.

How long, O Lord, how long?

My JFK thoughts

I thought I'd wait until most of the noise surrounding the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination had dissipated, before adding my own reflections.

Most reminiscences from us Boomers start with where we were when we heard the news. But I don't have many strong memories of that day; just a bewildering announcement on our car's radio. What I do remember much more vividly are two incidents from the autumn of 1960, during the campaign.

The first memory is a conversation with a couple of neighbor boys I was playing with. They solemnly informed me that their public school teacher had told them that if Kennedy were to be elected, all Americans would be forced to convert to Catholicism. Despite the grudging respect that the Church had earned in 20th-century America by raising up great men like Fulton Sheen, that's the kind of casual Protestant anti-Catholicism that Kennedy, and all of us, still had to live with.

The second memory is being allowed to accompany my mom to a Kennedy campaign rally in Long Beach, California. I don't remember anything about his speech — not surprising, I guess, for a 10-year-old —but I do recall how tanned his face was, and how broad and sincere his smile looked. Our seats were only about 50 yards away from him. Closer than the sniper in Dallas.

I think he set a bad precedent in his famous apologia (to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association) for being a Catholic candidate, seeming to banish the Faith from the public square. This attitude of the Kennedy Democrats, after all, morphed into that of the Cuomo Democrats not long after, when Roe v. Wade was handed down: personally opposed to grave evil, but unwilling to "impose our morality" on others. At MercatorNet.com, Sheila Liaugminas quotes both Peggy Noonan and George Weigel at length about this; these will give you better background than I could.

Despite the many sins that drag down his legacy, he left behind many great statements that will always buoy it up. I'll just imitate Sheila, and close with this:

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. 

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Pope Francis on Life, for real

Our liberal friends in the Catholic Church thought they heard a major policy change in Pope Francis' widely-quoted off-the-cuff remarks back in September, when he seemed to downplay the importance of the issue of abortion. Too bad they weren't paying attention the very next day, when, speaking with carefully-chosen words to a gathering of Catholic OB/GYNs, he said:

The third aspect is a mandate: be witnesses and speakers of this "culture of life" . Your being Catholic entails a greater responsibility: first of all to yourself, to be committed to being consistent with the Christian vocation; and then to contemporary culture, to contribute to recognising the transcendent dimension in human life, the imprint of the creative work of God, from the very first moment of conception. This is a commitment to the new evangelization that often requires going against the current, at a cost to the person. The Lord counts on you to spread the "Gospel of life."

Read the rest: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/popes-strong-words-in-defense-of-the-unborn#ixzz2laPjneTF

It bears repeating that even in the earlier casual statement, the Pope was simply reminding Catholics that preaching Christ must always come first, before we try to advance any social issue.

"Without Me, you can do nothing," Our Lord said, and Francis was just reminding us that He meant it.

What I wish I could tell Mark Ruffalo

It seems that actor and renowned deep thinker Mark Ruffalo is proud of his mother for aborting one of her children, i.e., a brother or sister of his. He pads out his defense of the indefensible with the same hackneyed nonsense slogans that pro-abortion people have used for forty years.

The LifeNews article about this incident mentions what is, to my mind, a polite but too-mild response from Students for Life America's Kristan Hawkins. Here's what I'd like to say to Ruffalo:

Your mom killed a brother or sister of yours, and you're proud of it. She was tired of seeing herself as a mere possession, so she fixed that by treating another person as a mere possession. You say her abortion experience, apparently pre-Roe, was dirty, dangerous, and demeaning. You might ask some of Kermit Gosnell's victims if things have changed much after forty years of legalized child-killing. That's because although the legalities have changed, the kind of doctor who would kill children is still the same. The kind of man who would applaud the murder of his brother hasn't changed, either.

'via Blog this'

A last small gift

Fr. Frank Pavone (of Priests for Life) has asked officials for after-trial custody of the remains of the forty-five infants killed by abortionist Kermit Gosnell and his staff, whose deaths are the subject of the current murder case that will soon go to jury. Fr. Pavone wants to give the infants a decent burial, as human beings deserve.

I have no idea whether he'll succeed. But I do think it's an artful move, in that it draws fresh attention to the fundamental issue of the humanity of these small and helpless victims.

I hope that every American of goodwill can agree that (1) these infants, whether killed in utero or after delivery, were members to some degree of the human race, and (2) the natural virtue that I hope we can still call "common" decency leads us to grant them the respect of a burial fitting for human beings.

We don't really need to settle the Great Question of whether these infants were full-fledged "persons" with an absolute right to decent treatment of their remains. We only have to agree that we, the living, have enough human pity and generosity left in us to grant these forty-five dead creatures, whatever their precise legal and philosophical status may be, the tiny last gift of a respectful interment.

Maybe they have a right to it. Maybe they don't. But can't we just let someone give them that gift?

A good, clean hit

During SuperBowl week, it seems appropriate to put this in football terms.

Often, you'll see a mediocre defensive player hit a ball carrier with a so-called cheap shot -- a needlessly violent collision with no fundamentals, no understanding of clean defensive technique, no real skill. Just an big, dumb impact with intent to injure.

But those aren't the players who ultimately succeed, the ones who earn the respect of both their teammates and their fair-minded opponents. The ones who go to the Pro Bowl, who get elected to the Hall of Fame.

We who fight against abortion-on-demand certainly saw one heck of a clean hit from a true champion, Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation, in this interview on MSNBC:

h/t LifeNews.com

What to do now

There's a long road ahead of us. Time to remember Eliot's East Coker again, I guess:

There is only the fight to recover what has been lost 
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions 
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. 
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Aborted This Way

Over the years, gay-rights groups have successfully convinced quite a few people that they are "born this way." That is, their same-sex attraction is genetically determined, and therefore morally unassailable. But they've also routinely allied themselves with the pro-abortion groups that regard an unborn child as its mother's absolute property, to be disposed of at will.

Now, with the imminent prospect of prenatal testing to reveal whether children in the womb have the "gay gene," the table is set for a really delicious example of the way that evil always ends up contradicting itself.

Consider this situation, which can only be a few years away:

Through such testing, an expectant mother finds out that the child she is bearing will be genetically inclined to same-sex attraction. But she doesn't want to bring such a child into the world, for reasons that seem good to her. Does her "right to choose," which the Sexual Left insists is absolute, allow her to abort that probably-gay child?

"Wait!" her gay-rights friend will cry. "There's nothing wrong with same-sex attraction. You can't do that! It's immoral."

"And who are you to say?" replies the mother. "Besides, it doesn't matter. If I want to abort my child for any reason, I have the right to do it. Anyway, that's what you said last year, when I was carrying that Down-syndrome child that I ended up aborting."

"Okay, then!" says the gay-rights friend. "Morality aside, it ought to be illegal to abort for that reason. You're discriminating against a gay person. It makes no difference that they're not born yet."

"Just try to make it illegal, buster," says the mother. "I don't want to carry a gay kid to term. You can't make me."

And at this point, both shout "I'll see you in court!"

In the long, vile multi-course dinner that the muddle of modern evils has been, this is one dish I'm really looking forward to.

I'll have mine with mustard, please.

St. Ann's Army

Long ago, I complained that the Catholic Church doesn't educate its congregations at the parish level about the reasons for its positions on abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research. The author of Causa Nostrae Laetitiae was kind enough to comment, and what she said has made me think about a solution.

... pro-life speech is as prohibited in many a Catholic Church as it is in public schools. I had to sneak around the parking lot during election 2004 to inform Catholics on the presidential candidates' widely divergent positions on abortion. My pastor has banned pro-life groups and has a collection of JFK autographed photos on his office wall. He appears to be a loyal Democrat.

... This is NOT to suggest that the battle is lost, or not worth waging, for our love for Christ impels us to speak His truth, regardless of the cost. However, Satan has a large percentage of the Church and the government in his control, and it's a punishing battle, to be sure.

This is stunning, isn't it? That a man educated in the Church's doctrine at its great expense, and then given charge of a parish, would decide for himself that he doesn't like one of its doctrines, and take it on himself not only to stop teaching that doctrine himself, but also forbid anyone else to teach it? And, as the second paragraph implies, his bishop is at best unaware, and at worst complicit?

Pelosi: Bishops don't speak for Church

The increasingly indescribable Nancy Pelosi has now informed us that in suing the Federal Government over the HHS/ObamaCare insurance mandate, the Catholic bishops of our country are not speaking for the Catholic Church.

As usual, words are important, because they are the framework for thought. Consider how that phrase "speaking for..." is used by sane people. When President Obama says something, he speaks for the executive branch of government. No one would say, "Yeah, but I talked to a guy in the EPA, and he disagrees, so Obama's not really speaking for the administration." We'd retort, "What you really mean is that not everyone in his administration agrees with him." That's because by virtue of the office that he holds, we all know that Mr. Obama can indeed speak for his administration, regardless of internal disagreements.

In a similar way, the bishops speak for the Catholic Church within their dioceses, and when gathered together under the constitution of the USCCB, they speak for the Catholic Church in the United States.

Nancy, please go home and spend what time you have left on this Earth enjoying your grandkids. And repenting for your longtime rebellion against the Church. And for your decades of complicity in the murder of millions of unborn children.

Doonesbury goes mad

Seems that Gary Trudeau's using his Doonesbury comic strip this week to pillory the new Texas law that requires that women see an ultrasound of their unborn child before having him or her aborted. Apparently because this ultrasound is done with a vaginal probe, Trudeau is trumpeting the pro-abortion view that condemns the requirement as "state rape."

Isn't it a little weird that he's so outraged about this, when the abortion he so ardently hopes will follow the ultrasound will also involve inserting something? That that something will certainly be fatal for one person in the room, and quite possibly for the woman as well? And that he, while posing as a defender of women, would cheapen the very serious crime of rape by using the word in so twisted a sense?

Weird, yes. But unexpected from that side of the argument? Not in the least.

DNC chairwoman: Catholics, your Church's beliefs are "extreme"

From the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, comes the news that one of our Church's core moral teachings is "extreme" and "divisive."

For self-described progressive Catholics, the choice is becoming too clear to paper over any longer: the left wing of the Democratic Party, or your Church.

Death, or life.

Cursing, or blessing.

Time's up. What's your final answer?

More on Fr. Pavone

The always-cogent Phil Lawler has provided a good analysis of what's presently known about the dust-up between Fr. Pavone of Priests for Life and his bishop.

Fr. Pavone and Bishop Zurek

Today came the news of the suspension of Fr. Frank Pavone, of Priests for Life. Bishop Zurek of Amarillo, the diocese in which until recently PFL kept its offices under the aegis of a different bishop who was supportive, suspended him from his pro-life operations, with allusions to unspecified financial concerns, and recalled him to Amarillo. It's too early to tell what's going on here, but Fr. Pavone's response certainly is eloquent, obedient, yet resolute. We'll see.

The President on abortion

Here's President Obama's statement marking the 38th anniversary of Roe (my comments in bold):

Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. [Never mind that the government employees at your local public school will be happy to help your teen daughter find a way to get an abortion without your knowledge, let alone consent. But of course, that's not really intruding on "private family matters"].

I am committed to protecting this constitutional right. [Yep, it's in there among the "penumbras" and "emanations." Really. You just gotta look hard.] I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. organization [Note that he didn't mention efforts that would actually try to dissuade women from choosing to abort. That might help make abortion rare, which wouldn't be good for a certain big campaign-contributor organization that makes millions by providing abortions.]

And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams. [In other words, the freedom to have sex just as irresponsibly as the crudest and most degenerate men. What a triumph for women that is! And you can fulfill your dreams just like men, too! You too can get right back on track to the Big Education that leads to the Big Career that leads to the Big Lifestyle -- and to the shattering Big Emptiness that comes at the end.]

Oh, but I forgot. The President's SO good on the social justice stuff! That trumps everything.