Tinfoil Habit

Gerald posts a story on Sister Prejean who was disinvited as a keynote speaker at the Diocese of Duluth education dinner in October because of an ad that appeared in the New York Times.

Catholic Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking" and a longtime social activist, has been uninvited as the keynote speaker at the Diocese of Duluth education dinner in October.

In a letter to some diocese residents sent Monday, Duluth Bishop Dennis Schnurr said the decision to cancel the event and Prejean’s address was based on her name appearing on an Aug. 3 New York Times advertisement calling for President Bush to be removed from office.

Schnurr said the ad was brought to his attention by lay people in the diocese.

"Upon reviewing the advertisement, I find that I share their concerns," Schnurr said in the letter. "Therefore we have made the difficult decision to cancel her appearance."

Now on first thoughts an ad calling for the President to be removed from office wouldn’t be an act that would require a disinvite. The ad though is quite wacky.

YOUR GOVERNMENT, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

YOUR GOVERNMENT suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

Sister Prejean has made a statement to clarify things.

My stance on abortion is a matter of public record. I stand morally opposed to killing: war, executions, killing of the old and demented, the killing of children, unborn and born. As I have stated publicly many times, I stand squarely within the framework of "the seamless garment" ethic of life. I believe that all of life is sacred and must be protected, especially in the vulnerable stages at the beginning of life and its end.

I signed the ad because as a follower of the way of Jesus and a U.S. citizen, I cannot stand by passively and silently as I witness my government wage such grievous oppression and violence. It has been this same spirit of engaged citizenship that has for the past twenty years led me to speak out against the death penalty while encouraging my fellow citizens and my church to deeper reflection on the issue by the books and articles I have written and numerous public lectures.

So she signed the ad knowing that she didn’t agree with one part of it, and of course she didn’t object to the contraception part of it. Exactly what do critics of the President mean when they say "suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda"? I believe is an obvious allusion to embryonic stem-cell research, or at least Plan B, and RU-486. These would be the only cases where this charge can be made. So she truly does endorse abortion as long as it is done on the really young, not to mention abortafacient contraceptives. This is the problem with those who hide behind the "seamless garment" in that there is only one small part of the garment that gets their attention and they are really kind of fuzzy on that part that they are not activists for.

Bill Cork discovered that the organization behind the ad is C. Clark Kissinger a devoted Maoist.

Now, Sister, are you really telling us you didn’t bother to find out who was promoting the statement you signed?

And isn’t it funny how the Revolutionary Communist Party can be against war and torture, two of the things Communism has done better than any other ideology? And "putting people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night"?

Oh, and the bit about "theocracy"–what did Communism give us? Atheistic governments that torture people for their faith.

I do think the sister has donned a tinfoil habit with all the talk about impending theocracies. First Things this month did a roundup of all the Chicken Little books sounding the alarm about theocracy and just how fictional this charge is.

World can’t wait is the typical loony liberal site where Israel is guilty of war crimes, but the actual war crime of firing rockets that can land anywhere is not mentioned. Under Today’s Reason to Drive Out the Bush Regime they list the The Minuteman Project organizing volunteers to patrol the border. This just shows how stupid they are. This project has got zero support from the Bush administration and they would prefer that it just go away. It is also a volunteer project of civilians that has nothing to do with the government, yet since they exist Bush must be driven out. My toast landed butter-side down, another reason to drive out bush.

This group is also a pro-abortion as you can get. Check out this ad on the Casey-Santorum race.

Last but not least, this is how they want to drive out the President.

Let’s drive him out of office ourselves. Instead of depending on Democratic politicians to start impeachment hearings, let’s take to the street in mass, nonviolent protest and shut the whole country down until the entire Bush regime is driven out of office along with their whole program. Let’s demand that the Patriot Act be repealed not reformed. Let’s demand that they shut down the concentration camp at Gitmo. Let’s demand that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condelezza Rice, Richard Perle, Scooter Libby, and Paul Wolfowitz be led away to The Hague in leg irons. As long as any of these people are free, as long as Christian fundamentalists have access to our tax money, as long as the beginnings of the fascist state Bush as worked so hard to construct over the past 5 years is allowed to stand, nobody in the world is safe, no American can be free, and no Democratic president or congress will mean anything more than changing the furniture in the White House.