St. Patrick’s Church in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin / St. Patrick’s Facebook page
St. Louis, Mo., Apr 3, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
The Diocese of Madison clarified late last week that the Church does not endorse nor oppose specific political candidates after a Wisconsin pastor urged parishioners in his weekly parish bulletin message to vote against state Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz, who is openly pro-abortion.
“The Catholic Church’s involvement in public life doesn’t extend to endorsing candidates for election to public office nor calling for their defeat and thus refrains from partisan political activities. The Church does encourage voter registration and encourages Catholics, as citizens, to vote and to be civically engaged,” the diocese said in a statement sent to CNA.
“However, the Church also has both a duty and a right to call attention to the moral and religious dimensions of public issues, measuring social policies and political activities against the natural moral law and Gospel values. Since the first century, the Church has consistently affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law in its respect for all human life.”
The diocese’s response comes after Father Brian Dulli, pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, urged his parishioners to vote against the pro-abortion candidate in Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election, a race that observers say could have major effects on the legality of abortion in the state.
As reported by Wisconsin Public Radio, an attorney with the activist group Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is based in Madison, wrote to the IRS last week to complain about the bulletin, asking the IRS to revoke St. Patrick’s 501(c)3 nonprofit status.
The April 4 election is between former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly and current Milwaukee judge Protasiewicz. Protasiewicz has spoken openly about her pro-abortion views while insisting that she has made “no promises” to pro-abortion groups that she will seek to overturn the state’s current abortion ban.
In a March 26 parish bulletin, Dulli urged Catholics not to vote for Protasiewicz, saying she has “tried to make this race entirely an effort to legalize abortion in the state of Wisconsin.”
“Abortion is the intentional taking of a human life. It is murder. Our Catholic faith is clear that this is grave sin. It should never be controversial among Catholics to say that you can never intentionally take any action that knowingly will help in the taking of a human life. You cannot publicly support abortion or abortion advocates and remain a Catholic in good standing,” Dulli wrote.
“As a Catholic, I urge you, for the salvation of your soul; do not vote for her [Protasiewicz] in the Supreme Court race on April 4,” he continued.
“I encourage you to study the race carefully and form you [sic] conscience correctly in accordance with the truths of the Catholic faith.”
In his April 2 bulletin message, Dulli acknowledged that the March 26 bulletin “got much more exposure than usual” and reiterated that “given a choice between any two people, we must say ‘absolutely not’ to the person who says abortion should be on the table.”
“We need to say no to a system that demands human sacrifice of the unborn be on the table. Jesus said that we will be judged by what we do to the least among us. Babies are the littlest and least. If someone consents to the killing of unborn children, they will not stop at the destruction of you or your family,” Dulli wrote.
“Haven’t we seen enough destruction now to know it?”
Reached by CNA on Monday, Dulli declined to comment further, saying he believes the situation has been “talked about enough.”
What’s Tuesday’s election all about?
The 2023 Wisconsin judicial race, which might have remained obscure in other years even within Wisconsin, is garnering national media attention and record fundraising numbers for the candidates. The reasons have to do with a prediction — both among pro-life and pro-abortion groups — that the winner of the election could tip the scales in Wisconsin when it comes to the state’s current abortion ban.
Wisconsin is the only state in the nation with a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban in effect, at least on paper. Wisconsin’s ban, which is contained in Section 940.04 of the Wisconsin Statutes and dates to 1849, allows abortion only to save the life of the mother. The state’s Democratic governor and attorney general have said they will not enforce the ban and are currently suing in an attempt to have it overturned.
The law was previously unenforceable following the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, but Roe’s overturning last year allowed the statute to come into effect. So far, it has not been blocked in court, as has happened with pre-Roe bans in West Virginia and Michigan.
Pro-abortion groups within and outside Wisconsin have identified the state Supreme Court race as the key to getting 940.04 overturned. Gov. Tony Evers, along with Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, announced a lawsuit last year to attempt to overturn the law, arguing that it has been superseded by subsequent legislation and cannot be enforced.
The lawsuit is likely to be ultimately decided by the state Supreme Court, which has had a 4-3 conservative majority for the past decade and a half. The current election will determine who will sit in the open seat being vacated by retiring conservative justice Patience Roggensack. The winner will serve a 10-year term.
Pro-life advocates worry that should the state Supreme Court obtain a pro-choice majority, the state’s pre-Roe ban could be declared unconstitutional, as happened last year in neighboring Michigan.
Who are the candidates?
Kelly is a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who served on the court from his appointment by then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2016 until he was voted out in 2020. He describes himself as a “constitutional conservative” and on his campaign website charges that his opponents are “judicial activists who seek to impose their own political agenda on our state.”
Amid a contentious campaign, Kelly has earned the endorsement of three statewide pro-life groups — Wisconsin Family Action, Pro-Life Wisconsin, and Wisconsin Right to Life. He said during a recent debate that his numerous endorsements from pro-life groups came about after having conversations with them about his pledge to uphold the Constitution, not because of any promise to keep the abortion ban in place.
In contrast, Protasiewicz has garnered endorsements from numerous top Democrats in Wisconsin as well as from pro-abortion groups such as NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and EMILY’s List. Protasiewicz currently is a judge for Branch 24 of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in Wisconsin, having been elected to that court in 2014.
Protasiewicz has insisted she has made “no promises” to pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List but also has made no bones about her pro-choice views. “My personal opinion is that [it] should be the woman’s right to make the reproductive health decisions, period,” she said during a March 21 debate.
What have Catholic leaders said?
At least two of the state’s bishops, including Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, have reiterated to Catholics that the right to life is a foundational issue that should form their consciences as they decide how to vote on Tuesday.
“Without the right to be born and to live, every other right is worthless,” Hying wrote in a March 30 letter.
“Do we want to live in a country that welcomes the wonder of every human life, supports marriages and families, helps the needy and suffering, seeks justice for all, and builds a civilization of love, or, do we want a society which aborts its children, leaves struggling parents without support, and lives a radical autonomy with no reference to the dignity of life and the common good? Do we elect civic leaders who stand on the unshakeable moral principle that every human life is sacred and of immeasurable worth, or, do we elect those who disregard the fundamental dignity of life and advocate for taking the life of the most innocent in the womb? Such questions we should ask ourselves as we exercise our moral and civic duty to vote.”
Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee also issued a letter, dated March 28, urging Catholics to vote for candidates that uphold the right to life.
“The killing of the innocent has never been supported by Catholic Church teachings. As citizens, we have an obligation to support the laws that protect the innocent. We must take our responsibility, as citizens before God’s judgment, for the times we have supported the destruction of the innocent. We must also take responsibility for the lack of support for the protection of the innocent when we vote for candidates and laws that liberalize abortion laws,” Listecki wrote.
“There is nothing enlightened about an individual who fails to realize that the denial of the right to life for the most vulnerable among us is an attack on the dignity and personal value of every citizen. I could not and would not support a candidate whose position on life is contrary to the teachings of the Church — a position contrary to the teachings and love of Jesus.”
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“Catholic Media” (top entry): Cardinal Parolin wisely urges unity with the papacy, and at one point even cracks the door for dialogue about distinct “ideas” as such: “There are also some bishops who are linked to a more conservative policy, and the Holy Father himself has commented on the situation of the EWTN television (a large American Catholic network), where many times the commentators are very critical of the Holy Father, at least of his ideas.”
“…at least of his IDEAS.” I am reminded of a wide-eyed undergraduate who proclaimed a simpleton insight inflicted in a secular university classroom. Said he: “to criticize another person’s ideas is to attack the person!” To his credit, Parolin still articulates the erased distinction…
So, if centrifugal Catholicism continue under cover of ideological synodism, what about anti-papal and anti-Catholic ideas and grooming by the likes of Marx, Batzing, Grech, Hollerich & Co. (including cute photo ops for poster child James Martin!) which will be the end of the Catholic Church—with or without cosmetic unity under this or a future pope?
If Cardinal Parolin’s concern is EWTN’s most recent interview with Cardinal Muller, perhaps he should join in a future dialogue? When is the last time senior papal-advisor Parolin counseled Pope Francis to respond to critics from outside the bubble and NOT of the papacy, but rather of some of his (ill-advised!) ideas? Silence toward Veritatis Splendor and the dubia come to mind….
The way to respond to an Orwellian Church is not very complicated. When any prelate, even the highest prelate, presents public posturing in word or deed that undermines a sacred responsibility to give witness to truths that serve and protect innocent human life from mass slaughter, that prelate has no standing by way of office to not be subject to the full force of public rebuke by any and all voices in the Church if he will not listen to one time immediate fraternal correction. The lives of the innocent are sacred. The often petulant egos of ordained men count for nothing at all. They are rotted wheat to be trampled upon.
@Catholic Media. Yes, Mother Angelica founded Ewtn “at the service of the Church and the Pope.” Although, that’s when [1981] we had John Paul II and clear affirmation by the papal Magisterium on traditional doctrine. Since 2013 that clarity no longer exists.
Card [Vat Secy of State] Parolin’s injunction to Ewtn to remain entirely loyal to the papacy is actually not an issue. Ewtn has remained faithful to the Chair of Peter. Although they’re a news media, which media discuss issues, questions regarding the faith. Why would Ewtn be warned they could be sifted like wheat by Satan unless they remain loyal to Francis if he isn’t referring to Ewtn valid responses to doctrinal controversy initiated by His Holiness? Message: Talk kindly and in line with Pope Francis [including his opinions, suggestions, his appointments, that is, everything] or be quiet!
Vat Secy of State Parolin gives the impression of Hu Jintao, Gen Secy CCP Cent Committee speaking for Xi Jinping. After all, isn’t it Parolin who previously arranged that the Catholic Church in China follow CCP Party ideology rather than Christ’s revelation? And recently renewed it?
@Escaping the Rapture. “The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. The Eucharist brings us into intimate union with the communion of the saints” (John Paul II in Carl Olson Nation 10.21.22).
When assigned to the Jicarilla Apache Nation a parishioner warned me, they [Apaches] are very intelligent. Affirmed when a young ‘warrior’ asked me about the discrepancy between our judgment at death, and the general Resurrection from the Dead and final judgment. Double jeopardy? My response, With God there is no consequence as in time. However, we experience judgment, it’ll be experienced within God’s existence, not our human time frame.
Olson addresses a reality related to time and place, and the eternal presence. The Holy Eucharist he said transported him [and wife] mystically, truthfully, into that ethereal realm absolving fears contrived by mistaken advocates of the Rapture, and left behind anxiety.
Aquinas, thinking scientifically says post holy communion Jesus lasts within us approx 15 minutes [about the time he assumed the Eucharist would dissolve]. Whereas St Maria Faustina says in her diary Christ informs her he remains with us until the next reception of the Eucharist. What that implies is the continuance of Christ’s presence realized in the assent by the recipient to a charitable [loving], transformative relationship with the living Christ. We are somehow, mysteriously transported into heaven.
Prayer, silent, receptive, a sense of presence immediately following reception continues with our willful awareness, accented within when we pray silently during the day or night [especially at night] experiencing that presence. Rapture anxiety dissolves into the contrived nothingness it is. As the author says, we’re never alone.
@The Rainbow Reich. “It was always implausible to imagine that our society could celebrate homosexuality and honor it with the institution of marriage without undermining the socialization of children into healthy patterns of male–female reciprocity” (RR Reno First Things).
When I read the title I thought this reference to German Synodaler Weg should be applied to the US. And, lo and behold, I was right. “Our educational ideologies celebrate critical methods that ‘disorient’ and ‘deconstruct.’ That’s what ‘queering means'” (Reno). Reno insightfully [or is it more an inevitability] observes it will get worse. “In the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul gives an account of our descent into bondage to sin. ‘Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity’ [patheatimias—dishonorable passions]” (Reno).
I won’t go so far as to analyze the remainder of Reno’s excellent analysis of gay marriage except to note that unlike other peremptory related vices same sex marriage is celebrated, a transformation, recreating a culture in which traditional marriage and social mores are impugned as antithetical. This is the horrible, diabolic moral war in which we’re now immersed, and must engage [the reprobate ideology] in ‘fierce’ opposition.
Added to my comment is the important dynamic [also noted by Reno] the Apostle cites in Rm 1 as the cause of a turn to perversion, the refusal to reasonably recognize God as author of nature, the creation, as visible to us in that creation. We find the similar dynamic in our culture, particularly among liberal, and or dissenting, nominal Catholics in their loss of faith, accommodation of homosexuality.
You mean added to your third comment…..
Yes. Rm 1 has been omitted from the Liturgy of the Mass, an issue that should be corrected, very doubtful during this pontificate. Taylor Marshall, often criticized including traditional Catholics is at least honest and more perceptive than many, a sample:
“An example of the silence of offensive passages is from the readings of last week, where the reading of Saint Paul against homosexuality [including female lesbianism] in Romans 1:26-32 is notably omitted from the cycle. Below are the readings for the 28th Week in Ordinary Time [Lectionary 468 and 469]” (Dr Taylor Marshall).
“Rapture”
It was Noah and his family who were ‘raptured’, by being left behind on earth, during the Great Flood. It was Lot who was ‘raptured’, by being left behind, during the destruction of Sodom. The Faithful of the Catholic Church, those immersed in the Wedding Garment of Jesus Divine Mercy, are going to sail right through the heart of the ‘Great Tribulation’, and into Jesus’ Kingdom Come on earth, to live in the Restored Garden of Eden on earth, under Messianic Reign. Messianic Reign will last for tens of thousands of years on Free-willed earth.
Here is the timeline on the Second Coming of Jesus, where He will ‘Deliver us from the Evil One’. Through modern apparitions of the past 300 years, Jesus has told us that it is now the time for us to enter into His Kingdom Come on earth. We have to all immerse ourselves in Jesus’ recent gifts of His Divine Mercy, which Jesus initiated in the year 2000. Jesus is Not King and Ruler of the world until His Subjects put His Laws into enforcement on earth. Apostolic Successors do so by reading the Revelation 10 ‘small scroll’, which is a list of Catholic auto-anathemas, while blowing seven trumpets. Once the ‘small scroll’ is read and the seventh trumpet blows, Jesus is enthroned in heaven as King and Ruler of the world.
Once Jesus is enthroned as King and Ruler of the world, we go through the ‘Three Days of Darkness’. Those who have prepared themselves and their families, are all immersed in Jesus’ Divine Mercy, which makes them God’s ‘Elect’. The Elect are in their darkened homes, with all the windows covered over and doors locked. The Elect have their Holy Candles burning and are on their knees praying for three Days of Darkness, straight. On the third day, the Elect step out of their darkened homes and into Jesus’ Kingdom Come, of Messianic Reign on free-willed earth. Jesus will have wiped away His Bride’s, the Catholic Church’s, every tear. Hallelujah!
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1146
Write: before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice.
Isaiah 26:20 DAY OF THE LORD: REWARD AND PUNISHMENT
Go, my people, enter your chambers, and close the doors behind you; Hide yourselves for a brief moment, until the wrath is past. See, the LORD goes forth from his place, to punish the wickedness of the earth’s inhabitants; The earth will reveal the blood shed upon it, and no longer conceal the slain.
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 My justice, is near.
Revelation 7
‘Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.’ I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites:…
…Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, ‘Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from’? I said to him, ‘My lord, you are the one who knows.’ He said to me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 723
He who trusts in My mercy will not perish, for all his affairs are Mine, and his enemies will be shattered at the base of My footstool.
Psalms 91:1
You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shade of the Almighty, Say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.’ He will rescue you from the fowler’s snare, from the destroying plague, He will shelter you with his pinions, and under his wings you may take refuge; his faithfulness is a protecting shield. You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, Nor the pestilence that roams in darkness, nor the plague that ravages at noon. Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, near you it shall not come. You need simply watch; the punishment of the wicked you will see. Because you have the LORD for your refuge and have made the Most High your stronghold, No evil shall befall you, no affliction come near your tent.
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. …
Isaiah 57:13
But whoever takes refuge in me shall inherit the land, and possess my holy mountain.
http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html
http://www.apocalypseangel.com/eden.html
Regarding the Catholic Media, it is interesting that Pope Francis finds the opinions and content expressed by EWTN as polarizing. However Pope Francis appears to be silent when it comes to President Biden’s pro abortion stance, pro abortion comments by theologians, etc.
We should remain loyal to the Church’s Magisterium rather than to the timelessly mindless ideas of modern disciples of Hegelian dialectics. Would the vicar of Christ have us be loyal to heretical teaching or to Magisterium-honoring truth? Which does the vicar of Christ himself believe and follow? Would he recognize and how does he define apostasy, heresy and schism? Does he believe in sin?
Letter to the Editor: Thanks for the image….it’s the beauty of a day gone by and lately startling wilting sunflowers.
I will be watching more of Ewtn now that I know the Vatican are against it.pope Francis caused this polorization. And the buck stops with him.. or China