Pro-life

I found this over at Insight Scoop a statement where Sen. Joe Biden says:

"My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine,"

This reminded me of something that came out during the last presidential campaign cycle in 2004. Sen. Dick Durbin had put out a scorecard called "Evaluating the Votes and Actions of Public Officials from a Catholic Perspective" where each Catholic Senator was suppose to be evaluated against Catholic doctrine and USCCB "full range of issues." It was a quite laughable attempt since it had Kerry at the top with Sen. Santorum towards the bottom. But I decided to look it up again to see where even this heavily biased scorecard placed Sen. Biden.

So Sen "My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine" Biden gets scored at only 50% by his fellow Catholic Democrat on a scale that was totally relativistic in regard to issues..

Of course as Carl Olson notes the Church’s pro-life teaching is part of the "social doctrine" of the Church.and of course is included in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Though I can understand how the Senator has made this mistake because so many of the social justice types make exactly the same mistake. There is social justice and then there is abortion. There is a false schism that has been created in regards to the Church’s pro-life and pro-marriage teaching and what social justice activists think are only included in this category. As Catholics we can get tired of saying both/and, but we constantly have to repeat it because is constantly applies. Let’s work for the culture of life and at the same time also have a preferential love of the poor. Let’s work to end abortion and be peacemakers. Let’s help mothers choose life when they think this new life is inconvenient and be prudential stewards of the environment that God created for us. Both/And people!

There has been much talk of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Meet the Press appearance where she talked about her being an ardent and practicing Catholic and then went on to try to make the case that the Church’s position on abortion is relatively new. She went on to pick on St. Augustine saying that he said life begins at three months. Well usually they pick on St. Thomas Aquinas for this so I am sure he is glad to have gotten a break this time. As medical science has advanced we now know that life begins at conception. I find it highly ironic that the Church always being labeled as anti-science leaves the definition of the beginning of life to science. Though Ms. Pelosi who supports partial birth abortion won’t be called anti-science for her views as she should be. But hey she said she did a lot of studying on this issue!

Her total misrepresentation has not gone without notice in the Church in America.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: On the Separation of Sense and State. (Best title of a diocesan pastoral letter ever)

U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities issued a statement of the USCCB’s front page.

Archbishop Wuerl responds.

Archbishop Egan responds.

Nancy Pelosi’s bishop Archbishop Niederauer issued – crickets chirping.

Post updated to included more responses.

Creative Minority Report has been having fun with Obama/Biden Bumper stickers. When I think of this duo I think of one thing primarily.

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Rome, Aug 19, 2008 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The prefect of the Apostolic Signature, Archbishop Raymond Burke, said this week that Catholics, especially politicians who publically defend abortion, should
not receive Communion, and that ministers of Communion should be responsibly
charitable in denying it to them if they ask for it, “until they have reformed
their lives.”

In an interview with the magazine, Radici Christiane, Archbishop Burke
pointed out that there is often a lack of reverence at Mass when receiving
Communion. “Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily is a sacrilege,”
he warned. “If it is done deliberately in mortal sin it is a sacrilege.”

To illustrate his point, he referred to “public officials who, with knowledge
and consent, uphold actions that are against the Divine and Eternal moral law.
For example, if they support abortion, which entails the taking of innocent and
defenseless human lives. A person who commits sin in this way should be
publicly admonished in such a way as to not receive Communion until he or she
has reformed his life,” the archbishop said.

“If a person who has been admonished persists in public mortal sin and
attempts to receive Communion, the minister of the Eucharist has the obligation
to deny it to him. Why? Above all, for the salvation of that person, preventing
him from committing a sacrilege,” he added.

“We must avoid giving people the impression that one can be in a state of
mortal sin and receive the Eucharist,” the archbishop continued. “Secondly,
there could be another form of scandal, consisting of leading people to think
that the public act that this person is doing, which until now everyone believed
was a serious sin, is really not that serious – if the Church allows him or her
to receive Communion.”

“If we have a public figure who is openly and deliberately upholding abortion
rights and receiving the Eucharist, what will the average person think? He or
she could come to believe that it up to a certain point it is okay to do away
with an innocent life in the mother’s womb,” he warned.

Archbishop Burke also noted that when a bishop or a Church leader prevents an
abortion supporter from receiving Communion, “it is not with the intention of
interfering in public life but rather in the spiritual state of the politician
or public official who, if Catholic, should follow the divine law in the public
sphere as well.”

“Therefore, it is simply ridiculous and wrong to try to silence a pastor,
accusing him of interfering in politics so that he cannot do good to the soul of
a member of his flock,” he stated.

It is “simply wrong” to think that the faith must be reduced to the private
sphere and eliminated from public life, Archbishop Burke said, encouraging
Catholics “to bear witness to our faith not only in private in our homes but
also in our public lives with others in order to bear strong witness to
Christ.”

"Above all, for the salvation of that person …" Comments like this make me really miss having Archbishop Burke around in the United States. If only many more would imitate his behavior in this regard for the salvation of souls and clarity on this subject. The Pope though was obviously quite aware of his stance on this and the scholarship of his article he wrote on Canon 915 when he tapped him as head of the Apostolic Signature. And while the Pope certainly does not make appointments specifically to send signals it certainly does show his supreme confidence in the Bishop as a Canon Lawyer.

A Jester Hat tip to another hat wearer The Black Biretta.

Even though their has been plenty of ink and pixels spilt over Sen. Obama’s answers at the Saddleback church and his questioning afterwards, I want to add my own .02 cents (adjusted for inflation).

Asked at what point a baby gets “human rights,” Obama, who strongly supports abortion rights, said: “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.

Now I have come to expect silly answers from any pro-abortion politician on the subject of abortion. This though takes the cake because if you accept this answer you have to take in with it a bunch of other conclusions.

• One thing is that obviously he knew he would get a question on this topic and prepared what he thought this was a slick answer in front of an Evangelical audience. Yes a United States Senator, supposed constitutional scholar, and president wannabe considers this question above his paygrade. I doubt if he would say Roe v. Wade was above the paygrade of the Supreme Court and that it was a subject limited to scientists and theologians.
• If he actually believed what he said this means that he is an abortion supporter even though he does not know when a baby gets human rights. You think you might want to get that little detail down first. But I guess he errs on the side of death.
• When a baby gets human rights is not a scientific question in the first place, but a philosophical one. The fact that human life begins at conception is a scientific one and one that embryology textbooks backup. The philosophical conclusion derives from the scientific one, but the scientific method can not detect a human right. But this is a matter of the natural law and certainly does not require revelation to know the truth about it as Obama’s answer also somewhat implies.

With such an answer I certainly hope the presidency remains above his pay grade. Now Sen. McCain got the answer right when he stated that it begins at conception. Now if only he could make the logical conclusion that his limited support of ESCR is thus immoral.

Later that same night Sen. Obama when asked about the charges made by the National Right to Life Committee replied:

"They have not been telling the truth, and I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying."

What he should have done ala Clinton is wag his finger and say "I did not have vote against that bill" because it is another equally outright lie. Not only did he know he was lying he was willing to calumniate the NRLC for political reasons. Deal Hudson predicted that this charge would have to be answered quite quickly and sure enough the lie was so bad that even the Obama campaign had to acknowledge that the bill he voted against in the state senate was identical to the Federal bill that was passed unanimously. Though previously the campaign had denied the evidence that NRLC has turned up In the same interview he had also said

…I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported – which was to say – that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born – even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion.

… withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies common sense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.

…It’s one thing for people to disagree with me about the issue of choice, it’s another thing for people to out and out misrepresent my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.

Well he is doing a good job of misrepresenting his opinions all by himself. But he is right that his vote "defies common sense and id defies imagination." Though the response by the Obama campaign does not go far enough. Sen. Obama should personally apologize to the NRLC for his calumny instead of letting flunkies make a statement. This likely will not happen since his track record is never to admit a mistake such as saying he would not vote for the surge even in hindsight after it proved successful. The campaign is now taking a new tact on the infanticide issue and saying Obama voted against it because it was unconstitutional (the Federal version passed Supreme Court challenge) and that it would have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Even if this was true what Obama’s vote says is that he is willing to allow even infanticide to protect abortion rights. That he would vote against a bill that even NARAL did not oppose.