On abortion, two revolutions have now happened. The first is the Dobbs decision overturning the invented “constitutional” right to abortion of Roe v. Wade and restoring democracy by returning the issue after fifty years to “the people and their elected representatives.” The second is that abortion as a political issue has changed in a fundamental and national way. Roe was a judicial decision that was enforced by the Supreme Court in the twenty abortion decisions since 1972 by having private plaintiffs, women or abortion clinics primarily, going into federal court to have state laws overturned. Since there was and still is no federal abortion statute, the federal government had no primary or effective role. Now abortion is a primary electoral and legislative issue at both the federal and state levels.
Dobbs unleashed a dramatic expansion of the status of abortion in the Democratic Party, an expansion that had already been growing in recent years after that party’s former “safe, legal, and rare” stance in its party platform of 2004. The party has now made the calculated decision to make support for abortion a major issue in the fall Congressional elections. And the Kansas abortion vote would seem to endorse that decision. In the summer of 2022, a critical and probably definitive election year, abortion is proclaimed by the media-academic-Democratic-corporate complex as essential to a meaningful modern life and as grounded, according to Justice Breyer in his Dobbs dissent, in principles of what “it means to be an American.”
This new, fortified, and national abortion movement is being led by two Catholics: President Joe Biden and the person constitutionally second in line to the presidency, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Restabilizing the country
During a press conference at a NATO meeting in Spain on June 29, President Biden said the “outrageous” Dobbs decision was doing nothing less than “destabilizing” the country and asserted that “[t]his fall, Roe is on the ballot.” One month after the release of Dobbs, Biden nominated the lawyer for the abortion clinic involved in the Dobbs case to be a federal appellate judge. He has directed the Department of HHS to “protect access to” the abortion drug, mifepristone. On July 8, Biden issued an executive order requiring the federal government to institute multiple protections for abortion and “reproductive rights” in federal health law. Biden said that, “Doing so is essential to justice, equality, and our health, safety, and progress as a Nation.” The same order provided for the creation of the Interagency Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access. In a direct repudiation of the Court’s decision to return abortion to “the people and their elected representatives,” the Justice Department on August 2 filed a lawsuit against the state of Idaho’s restrictive “trigger” abortion law about to be put into effect. On August 3, Biden signed a second executive order allowing states to use Medicaid to subsidize interstate travel for abortions. The same order specified that the Interagency Task Force shall include no fewer than nine of the executive departments as well as other executive agencies – i.e., the involvement of the entire federal executive branch. On August 8, the White House hosted a meeting of Vice President Harris with “Latina state legislators” for the purpose of promoting abortion in the states.
Indeed, the new and expanded abortion movement is now international and led by the United States. Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, calling Dobbs a “cruel, dark, and dangerous decision,” said on June 24, the day of the decision, that the Biden administration will be “defending the rights of women and girls both at home and abroad” including at “the UN and in our foreign assistance.” She added that she had already “traveled the globe advocating for women’s rights.” Two days after the release of the Dobbs decision, U.S Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that “we’re going to continue to do the work that we’re doing around the world to advance access to reproductive health services for women and girls around the world.” He was in Germany at a G7 conference when he made the statement. Foreign leaders including Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada (“horrific”) and Boris Johnson (“backward step”) of England have taken the unusual steps of vociferously criticizing another country’s domestic law.
In his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden had laid heavy importance on his Catholicity: “I’m a practicing Catholic.” That kind of religious emphasis in a campaign for public office was essentially unprecedented in modern American history – or prior history. Devout Christian Jimmy Carter did not make his Christianity a central part of his political message. His faith was something he used to explain himself personally. But for three years now, Biden’s “rosary beads” have been referred to in the media again and again. “Joe Biden’s Agenda for the Catholic Community” (no longer available online) was a separate section of his campaign platform. And indeed, that section specifically listed Catholic issues on immigration, climate change, Pope Francis’ Laudatio Si, and workers’ rights, but not abortion. Biden’s Catholicity may have been politically decisive in his 2020 election. A majority of Catholics voters went for Biden, and that could have made the difference, especially in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
In June of this year, an AP/NORC poll found that 64 percent of American Catholics agreed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, dramatically different from Evangelical Protestants, of whom only 25 percent agreed. And 60 percent of Catholics who attend church “at least monthly” think that Catholic pro-abortion politicians should not be denied Communion. But a Pew Research Center poll in 2020 found that 67 percent of Catholics “who attend Mass weekly or more often” think that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
Immediately after the November 2020 presidential election, D.C.’s Cardinal Gregory said that he would not deny Biden Communion concerning his advocacy of abortion but would continue in “dialogue” with him and “discover areas where we can cooperate that reflect the social teachings of the church.” He has not changed his position since. Likewise, Jesuit Fr. Pat Conroy, who was the chaplain of the whole House of Representatives (not just for Catholic members) from 2011-2021, stated to the Washington Post on January 5 of this year that choice about abortion and other matters is “a Catholic value.” In June 2021, sixty Catholic Democrat members of the House of Representatives, citing Pope Francis among other authorities, had issued a joint formal statement endorsing “safe and legal access to abortion.”
Another unprecedented and national expansion of abortion advocacy is the new commitment of corporations after Dobbs to pay for out-of-state travel expenses for employees seeking abortions. Among the giant corporations that have pledged to do so are Amazon, Bank of America, Citigroup, Hewlett Packard, Kroger, JPMorgan Chase, Proctor and Gamble, Walmart, and Walt Disney.
Nancy Pelosi and the Gospel of Matthew
On May 19, two weeks after the tentative Dobbs majority opinion was leaked from the Supreme Court, Archbishop Cordileone, the bishop of the diocese that includes Speaker Pelosi’s Congressional district, sent a letter to her forbidding her from receiving Communion in the diocese. Quoting from the section of the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudiam et Spes (51) on “the Nobility of Marriage and the Family” and its teaching that “abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes,” and citing Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger) on the application of this teaching to “lawmaking bodies” and “a Catholic politician,” he held that “A Catholic legislator who supports procured abortion, after knowing the teaching of the Church, commits a manifestly grave sin which is a cause of most serious scandal to others.” Therefore, universal Church law provides that such persons “are not to be admitted to Holy Communion,” quoting Canon Law 915. He said further that he had sent a previous letter on April 7 to Pelosi upon reports that she had “vowed to codify the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in federal law,” but had received no response from her.
On May 24, Pelosi not only did not apologize for spurning her bishop but also engaged in her own catechetical and magisterial teaching when she responded to Cordileone by saying that she came from a “pro-life American Catholic family,” but opposed any Catholic efforts “foisting it on others” because to do so was “not consistent with the Gospel of Matthew.” It was reported that she then received Communion at a Catholic church in D.C. Whereupon, she arranged to receive Communion at the Vatican five days after the release of Dobbs. She was received by Pope Francis, who gave her a blessing.
In September 2021, after a preliminary ruling in the Texas abortion case, a companion case to Dobbs, had been handed down by the Supreme Court, Pelosi had led the Democratic majority in the House in strict party-line passage by a vote of 218-211 (one Democrat voted against) of an abortion bill, the Women’s Reproductive Health Act, codifying Roe’s abortion right into federal law. The Senate did not vote on the bill.
On July 15 of this year, Pelosi responded to the Dobbs decision by again leading the House in the passage of the same abortion bill by a vote of 219-210, with no Republicans voting in favor. Pelosi said that the purpose of the bill was “to make reproductive freedom the law of the land.” On the same day, the Democratic House followed up with the passage by a vote of 223-205 of a bill to ensure interstate travel for abortions. Neither bill has yet been considered in the Senate. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a Catholic and Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, is the chief sponsor there. Even more recently, Pelosi, speaking at the University of California in San Francisco at Women’s Equality Day on August 26, added to her catechetical instructions by stating about abortion restrictions that “It’s wrong that they would be able to say to women what they think women should be doing with their lives and their bodies. But it’s sinful, the injustice of it all.”
On the date of the Dobbs decision, California governor Gavin Newsom, a Catholic and a graduate of the Jesuit Santa Clara University, joined the governors of Oregon and Washington in the creation of an abortion safe haven compact. Likewise, New York governor Kathy Hochul, who frequently invokes her Catholicism, responded to the Dobbs decision by promising that New York “will always be a safe harbor for those seeking access to abortion care.”
Before Biden, Pelosi, Newsom, and Hochul there was Andrew Cuomo, at the time the high-visibility Catholic governor of New York. In 2019, he led the successful movement in that state to enshrine into state law Roe’s principle of abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, which is, of course, the purpose of the current post-Dobbs national abortion movement. Writing in the New York Times, Cuomo said that he was “a former altar boy” and that “most Americans, including most Catholics, are pro-choice.” He explained that his “Roman Catholic values” are his “personal values” that he does not rely on “as I execute my public duties.” Cardinal Dolan sharply criticized Cuomo for his abortion advocacy but resisted the calls of many Catholics to exclude Cuomo from communion, saying that it would be “counterproductive.”
Vatican intervenes to prevent statement on Biden and Communion
In the spring of 2021, the American bishops were beginning discussion about the Eucharist and abortion and political life. A major document was planned to be presented at their annual meeting in November. The big question was whether the bishops as a body would address the commitment to abortion of Catholic office-holders, and especially the newly-elected president in the context of the worthy reception of Communion.
On May 5, Jesuit-educated Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego forcefully criticized in the Jesuit magazine America that “The Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare.” He specifically referred to attempts “to exclude President Joseph R. Biden and other Catholic public officials from the Eucharist.” He called it a “newly emerging American theology of unworthiness.” McElroy held the Eucharist is the fundamental “unity” of and “a bond of charity” in the Catholic Church and that “A national policy of excluding pro-choice political leaders from the Eucharist will constitute an assault on that unity, on that charity.” In May of this year, Pope Francis, in an unusual move, nominated McElroy, only a bishop and not an archbishop, to be a cardinal.
Two days later, on May 7, Cardinal Ladaria, speaking from the Vatican as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote an extensive letter instructing the American bishops on how to proceed. He opposed singling out Catholic politicians on abortion and recommended a general statement applicable to all Catholics about the worthy reception of the Eucharist in light of all “grave matters,” not just abortion, that Catholics may encounter, and he asserted that a national policy regarding Catholic public officials and abortion could “become a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger Church in the United States.”
A week later, at a press conference, Speaker Pelosi said that she would use her “own judgment” about advocating abortion and receiving Communion. She explicitly referred to and praised Ladaria’s letter. Four months later, in September 2021, she responded to statements by Archbishop Cordileone about her advocacy of abortion as legal and public policy with the declaration that “I believe that God has given us a free will to honor our responsibilities.”
Vatican ambassador to the United States Archbishop Christophe Pierre spoke at the American bishops’ November 2021 meeting. Echoing McElroy, he argued that the Eucharist should not be reserved “to the privileged few.” The bishops eventually did not deal with Biden or Pelosi but produced “The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church”, the overall and predominant subject of which is the Eucharistic itself, not public or political matters. The document does refer to the Gaudium et Spes passage about abortion as being “opposed to life itself,” and ranking it with “murder, genocide, euthanasia or willful self-destruction.” It contains no position on reception of the Eucharist by Biden or any Catholic public officials who favor abortion. At the end of the 35-page document, it is stated that a person “in his or her personal or professional life” who rejects “defined doctrines” or “definitive teaching on moral issues” should voluntarily “refrain” from receiving Communion. Only one paragraph deals in a general way with “the Church’s social doctrine” on “political, economic, and social realms.” Another paragraph states that each local bishop has “special responsibility to work to remedy situations that involve public actions at variance with the visible Communion of the Church and the moral law.” A footnote holds that the local bishop can forbid those “who are publicly unworthy” from receiving the Eucharist. Care for the poor is emphasized throughout: citing the Catechism, “the Eucharist commits us to the poor.” And citing both Francis and Benedict, the document cites “care for the environment.”
In the fall of 2021, one month before the bishops’ fall meeting, Pope Francis met with Pelosi at the Vatican on October 9. That was three weeks after Francis made his now-much-cited statement that he had “never denied the Eucharistic to anyone.” On October 28, 2021, Francis met with Biden who afterward said that they had not discussed abortion and declared that Francis had told him that he was “a good Catholic.”
On June 24, 2022, the day of the release of the Dobbs judgment, Bishop McElroy issued a statement and maintained that “being pro-life demands more than opposition to abortion” but essentially requires the whole progressive agenda from housing to jobs. In his own version of the routine criticism leveled at pro-lifers, he said that “[s]upport for children and families cannot stop at birth.” This was one month after Pope Francis had nominated McElroy to be a cardinal.
Catholic Leadership
In light of the international stature of the United States, there are no Catholic public officials in the world more prominent than Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. And because they are now also renowned for abortion, the effect of their advocacy of abortion is more than merely political. It not only justifies, it teaches.
Pope Francis made himself definitively clear when in October 2021, in anticipation of the fall 2021 meeting of the American bishops where the issue of the political advocacy of abortion by a practicing Catholic was scheduled to be considered, he received both Biden and Pelosi within three weeks of each other. With almost as much authority, the public and formal statement by Cardinal Ladaria, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, about the morality of abortion and the reception of the Eucharist, can only be considered doctrinal in its own right. In support are Cardinal McElroy and Vatican ambassador Archbishop Pierre.
Archbishop Cordileone’s efforts notwithstanding, the question of whether Catholic public officials can promote abortion and remain in good standing in the Church is apparently resolved and laid to rest.
This situation in the American Catholic Church is not new, of course. It goes back at least to 1996 when Cardinal Bernardin proclaimed in his “seamless garment” that being “pro-life” included other issues in addition to abortion. The widespread acceptance of the seamless garment permanently damaged the pro-life movement and allowed many bishops and priests – as well as lay Catholics, as past and recent polls show – to avoid the abortion issue altogether. The policy of the seamless garment was effectively re-stated by Washington D.C.’s Cardinal Gregory in his announcement after the 2020 presidential year that he could still “dialogue” with President Biden on other issues.
But the Catholic tolerance of abortion allowed by the seamless garment has now run into ferocious intolerance, precipitated by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, on the other side of the abortion issue. Thus did the roles of two Catholic public officials of the highest rank suddenly become even more prominent both nationally and internationally.
In the present mass-communications era ruled by semi-literate “popular opinion,” moral doctrines and teachings that are merely written down somewhere can have no purchase. Compared to the postmodern and historically unprecedented power of the media-academic-corporate complex, the moral teachings of the Catholic Church are completely outclassed. Better to accommodate and accompany. In this approach can be found not only “unity” but also safety.
In their 2020 party Platform, Democrats said that they “believe unequivocally, just like the majority of Americans” in abortion. Their leaders, Biden and Pelosi, have now acted unequivocally on that belief.
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In 1998 the USCCB still had something coherent to say about abortion together with other distinctly different works of justice, in “Living the Gospel of Life”– https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/abortion/living-the-gospel-of-life
“Catholic public officials are obliged to address each of these issues as they seek to build consistent policies which promote respect for the human person at all stages of life [“racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care”]. But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community [!]” (n. 22).
Now, we have the real “seamless garment”—woven from the burial of Humanae Vitae, then cohabitation and recreational sex, then the victims of abortion, then oxymoronic “gay marriage,” then anti-binary gender theory, and transgenderism. All of the same cloth and now imposed by elitist fatwas from duplicity-Catholics Biden and Pelosi…
And enabled by a tribe of camp followers in purple and red hats. Even the Real Presence (!) is offered to Baal.
The lead-in to this article (“President Joe Biden delivers remarks on what he calls the “continued battle for the Soul of the Nation” in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia Sept. 1, 2022″) reminds me of one other who battles for souls – Satan, the Father of Lies.
This post provides a factual record. It offers an argument based on and presented with irrefutable evidence. For this reason it cannot be easily ignored.
We now know the facts of the matter: Americans in high office, those who by reason of their office have power – for good or for evil – have involved the Catholic faith in support of abortion. Clever arguments are presented to “muddy the issue”; to weave threads of mercy and/or Christian understanding throughout the new garment of individual rights. These “rights” are posited against the clear teachings of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible; against the clear teachings of Jesus himself; against the until now clear teachings of those entrusted with a teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church. What are we to do?
Jesus counsels “prayer and fasting”. Some demons cannot be expelled except through “prayer and fasting”. This may seem too mild a response until one considers that prayer and fasting have great power. A person who faithfully practices prayer and fasting is changed, changed by the power of divine Grace. He or she may be inspired to struggle against the evil of abortion more effectively. This may happen. I pray that it will happen.
The newly capped cardinal McElroy said, “A national policy of excluding pro-choice political leaders from the Eucharist will constitute an assault on that unity, on that charity.” Charity is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, “unselfishly willing the good of the other,” which certainly includes our responsibility to catechize and reinforce the teaching of the Catholic Church in total. If we had done a good job of catechesis, “64 percent of American Catholics would not agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases,” as touted in a June AP/NORC poll. As Cardinal Ratzinger stated (prior to being elected Pope Benedict XVI), “Truth is not determined by a majority vote.”
From Catholic Culture:
President of Pontifical Academy for Life affirms legal abortion in Italy
Officials of Bergoglio’s Vatican now go on television and claim that “legal” baby murder is a pillar of society the legitimacy of which isn’t up for debate.
“Is the Pope Catholic?” used to be a joke. Not anymore. It is now a serious question with a simple, definitive answer: No.
Ultimately Bergoglio will go down in history as an antipope, and many of today’s bishops will ultimately be revealed as the people Christ warned us about:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”
— Matthew 7:15
And what has been the fruit of the “legal” abortion that Bergoglio’s Vatican insists isn’t up for debate? Hundreds of millions of the innocent children of God — wiggling, kicking babies — being viciously dismembered. That isn’t just bad fruit, it is diabolical fruit.
The saying I would use in the past was a little different: “more Catholic than the Pope” to indicate a person of fervent belief. But that somewhat different description has likewise lost all meaning.
““Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”
— Matthew 7:15”
This should be the Matthew Pelosi needs to read.
“Pope Francis made himself definitively clear”
So claims this article, but personally I do not recall such an occasion. For years we have heard conspiracy theories concerning one particular group of people, but recently I am.more inclined to think us Catholics are more guilty. Biden, Pelosi are the big names but look at the present and recent Mayors of New York and several other governors. Look at Ireland, fully Catholic politicians back abortion to the hilt, Boris in the UK. The rot is deep and did not develop overnight. It is very disheartening.
“Ultimately Bergoglio will go down in history as an antipope, and many of today’s bishops will ultimately be revealed as the people Christ warned us about:”
Hello Harry,
We have confirmation that Jesus is on His Way! Be sure to receive Jesus’ recent, year 2000, gifts of Divine Mercy Sunday, which will protect you and your family from the Wrath of God!
Pope Francis is Jesus’ sign for His Second Coming, and the ‘Great Tribulation’ that comes with Him. What Jesus tells us to look for, which will indicate His Second Coming, is Matthew 24:15 “the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place”, Both Jesus and the Blessed Mother, through locutions to St. Faustina, have confirmed that Jesus is, in fact, now Coming.
Matthew 24:15 The Great Tribulation
“When you see the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, a person on the housetop must not go down to get things out of his house, a person in the field must not return to get his cloak. Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days. Pray that your flight not be in winter or on the sabbath, for at that time there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will be.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 635, The Blessed Virgin Mary :
… you have to speak to the world about His great mercy and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Him who will come, not as a merciful Savior, but as a just Judge. Oh, how terrible is that day! Determined is the day of justice, the day of divine wrath. The angels tremble before it. Speak to souls about this great mercy while it is still the time for [granting] mercy. If you keep silent now, you will be answering for a great number of souls on that terrible day.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 965
Jesus looked at me and said, Souls perish in spite of My bitter Passion. I am giving them the last hope of salvation; that is, the Feast of My Mercy. If they will not adore My mercy, they will perish for all eternity. Secretary of My mercy, write, tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of justice, is near.
http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html
Weak, weak, weak bishops, or…strong democrat party bishops.
Also, they are not being strengthened by the Vatican on the issue of abortion. In fact, just the opposite.
Shameful and depressing.
As a credentialed pop psychologist with degrees from a Woolworth’s Dime Store, a Crackerjack’s award certificate I begin analysis of the mutual smile-grimace, a mirror copy of each other. Francis and Pelosi either share mutual reserve or, rather share mutual, say, Job well done affirmation.
Thomas Ascik deserves a job well done demonstrating where either Pelosi or Francis’ predilections on abortion lay. Clear as Waterford crystal. All the comments are of the torch bearing pitchfork and hatchet kind. Another convincing proof of the mutual smiles’ meaning. Always in context of Ascik’s legal brief.
A challenge to this is proffered by scripture scholar Nancy Pelosi and the Gospel of Matthew. If one has gained scriptural justification for abortion on demand for all with affectionate papal embrace, Eucharist at the Vatican, papal disdain for Archbishop Cordileone’s lack of pastoral artistry, while elevating master rationalist McElroy Archbishop of a much smaller diocese to the cardinalate it doesn’t take a highly credentialed pop psychologist like myself to come to a rational conclusion.
What then? A commentator likens it to worship of Baal. Baal is an underling. If all this is what undeniably meets our eyes are we not dealing with even more sinister developments? The fealty and adoration of the Evil One himself, Lucifer.
Faithful, take to your rosaries, penances, renewed prayer and sacrifice for the spiritually jeopardized. A serious heavenly reproach seems fast a coming.
You are correct, of course, about Baal as an underling, but then there’s this, too:
“They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind” (Jeremiah 19:5). Pelosi and Biden and late-term abortion/infanticide by another name…
Not too many years ago, a conservative Catholic said that the world is now so corrupt that the only thing left to do is to hunker down, say the rosary, and wait for the big blast.
On May 24, Pelosi not only did not apologize for spurning her bishop but also engaged in her own catechetical and magisterial teaching when she responded to Cordileone by saying that she came from a “pro-life American Catholic family,” but opposed any Catholic efforts “foisting it on others” because to do so was “not consistent with the Gospel of Matthew”
And so this illustrates another REAL issue: Nancy Pelosi has set herself up as a new teaching magisterium. She has acted in a manner consistent with her displacement of Archbishop Cordileone as the local voice of the Church.
Evangelicals aside, God bless them, the majority of those involved in direct efforts to combat abortion —on the sidewalk, in particular– are still Catholics. And Catholics on the Supreme Court gave us the Dobbs decision. Our situation is horribly polarized but all the more reason for us to redouble our efforts for the unborn, particularly in places where it is still legal, sanctioned and celebrated. Putting in a plug here for 40 Days for Life, which starts September 28. https://www.40daysforlife.com/en/
Mr. Olson – A small favor, s’il vous plait.
In future pieces about either Biden or Pelosi, the use of a small c when describing them as ‘catholic’ would be appreciated. Shirley that’s not asking too much.
Merci
Counselor Ascik,
BRILLIANT Analysis.
Thank you, and Godspeed.
John A. Lombardi
I cannot help thinking about the Reformation in England when so many bishops folded and went along with the secular rulers. To this day, we remember those who did not fold – Bishop John Fisher and layman Thomas More. They have inspired people for centuries, and we recall them with great reverence. Who remembers the spineless bishops of 16th century England?
Sadly, the American Bishops as a group (save for a few willing to take proper stands) are imitating the way the Bishops of England circa 1534/1535 caved into and appeased Henry VIII’s immoral marital desires in direct opposition to Catholic moral teaching, and this of course helped usher in and firmly establish the heretical Reformation in England.
Even sadder, whereas Pope Paul III stood strong against Henry VIII and made Bishop John Fisher a Cardinal in at least partial recognition of Bishop Fisher’s correct moral stance against Henry VIII (which led to Fisher’s martyrdom), Pope Francis acts more along the lines of the jelly-spined American Bishops. Not only does Francis flat out refuse to discipline all Catholic members of the political class in any country who openly defy Church moral teaching on abortion, he also made Bishop McElroy a Cardinal instead of acting more like Pope Paul III and elevating the more deserving Bishop Cordileone who (finally) took proper action in disciplining Nancy Pelosi for her outrageously immoral actions regarding abortion.
The powers of goodness, as many know, will ultimately win out, but they sure are taking a beating now. Still, as the Lord suffered to defeat evil, we must also courageously bear our current suffering in imitation of the Lord, and do whatever we can to battle relentlessly with virtue against the evil principalities and powers, thus doing our allotted small parts in what will become the final triumph of good over evil.
Ha! Great minds thinking alike. I am still waiting for CWA to publish my post that coincides with what you have written about Henry VIII’s England, and I include a few more important details and parallels that make the comparison even more on target.
God Bless.
There was no mention of the catholic theogians who laid the foundation for the ‘kennedy abortion dogma’ that Biden, Pelosi,& others are following. Let’s pray that pope francis expresses apology for those theologians. Isn’t over 60 million children aborted sufficient to ask for forgiveness? Apology seems too weak a word! Strong repudiation & deeply sorrowful regret stated very publicly doesn’t even seem enough.
Science definitively states that every human being begins life at their conception.
Let’s stick to the science.
American law requires equal protection of the law for all human beings.
Let’s not make it more complicated than it is.
Keep it simple.
Science and the law are on our side.
Many Catholic Social Teaching advocates appear to have a preferential option for governmental solutions. They also appear to act like the government is all powerful, all knowing, with limitless resources. The government as the universal destination of all power and authority. The government, Caesar, as god. The abortion issue in particular makes one wonder how much incense they are willing to burn to Caesar.
I find this article very intersting but I don’t understand the conclusion: “In the present mass-communications era ruled by semi-literate “popular opinion,” moral doctrines and teachings that are merely written down somewhere can have no purchase. Compared to the postmodern and historically unprecedented power of the media-academic-corporate complex, the moral teachings of the Catholic Church are completely outclassed. Better to accommodate and accompany. In this approach can be found not only “unity” but also safety.”
I agree that the Democrats, and maybe all American Catholic politicians, seem to have taken this stance and, with it, are de facto teaching it. Also that by allowing them to do so, the Church is de facto allowing this parallel teaching. But I would like to see the author talk about these things, rather than simply point them out.
That the news the new UK Minister of health is a practicing Catholic and is prolife shows how it is done! The media have gone nuclear on this stating in so much in words: HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? No doubt the English bishops will be quiet on this and even embarrassed by such a reality happening!!! God bless Minister Coffey!
I am wondering when, if ever, a Council will be formed to officially declare that claiming sin done in private is not sin is anti Christ.
Jorge Bergoglio’s apostasy was external and made public and notorious, when as a cardinal, he stated in his book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex sexual relationships, and thus same-sex sexual acts, prior to his election as pope, on page 117, denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost and demonstrating that he does not hold, keep, or teach The Catholic Faith, and he continues to act accordingly:
“If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected. Now, if the union is given the category of marriage, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help shape their identity.”- Jorge Bergoglio, denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and the fact that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque), Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, while denying sin done in private is sin.
I suppose The Deposit Of Faith must not be official if a Council needs to be called to officially declare that which every previous Council has declared to be true-private sin is sin, but it certainly appears that a Catholic need not believe this to be true in the counterfeit anti Christ church that is attempting to subsist within The One Body Of Christ.
Perhaps we can ask Pope Benedict XVI, if Christ’s Teaching regarding sin has changed, as we already have Jorge Bergoglio’s public statement regarding the essence of “private” relationships and sin, which is most definitely anti Christ.
CCC II. THE DEFINITION OF SIN
“1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121
1850 Sin is an offense against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”122 Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,”123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to contempt of God.”124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125
1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal – so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,126 the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.”
It is a sin to accomodate an occasion of sin, and thus cooperate with evils.”
Woe to us for allowing this counterfeit church to subsist within The One Body Of Christ and not officially declaring its members to be heretics.
https://www.amazon.com/Charitable-Anathema-Dietrich-Von-Hildebrand/dp/0912141077
“Penance, Penance, Penance.”