Pro-lifers everywhere are on pins and needles waiting to see the fate of the abortion funding Obamacare bill.
As Catholic pro-lifers we have tried everything we could to stop this bill or at the very least stop the funding of abortion. First there was the Stupak amendment, but as many congress-watchers knew at the time that it would likely make little difference. The real battle has always been in the Senate and they don’t care about abortion in the Senate. Heck, the ostensibly pro-life Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania folded before the cards were even dealt proving once and for all that the only life he is pro is his own.
But then, then it seemed that there might be one true pro-life Democrat in the Senate in the person of Senator Ben Nelson. His unequivocal statement about never voting for a bill that funded abortion, wasn’t. This dramatic statement was merely a bluff intended to sweeten his end of the deal. His blatant corruption and vote selling has now made him one of the most despised people in the country somewhere between Tiger Woods and Jon Gosselin.
Pro-lifers everywhere were devastated. It seemed there was no hope. But now there remains one glimmer of hope left and that hope is that a pro-choice Republican wins Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts.
This is what it has come to. Our pro-life hopes are pinned to a Republican, a pro-choice Republican, winning in Kennedyland and if some recent polls are to be believed, it just might happen. They say God works in mysterious ways and I think it is true. The Coakley campaign has slipped on so many of its own well-placed banana peels, one must suspect divine intervention of the dim-witted kind.
While Republican Scott Brown is pro-choice he opposes partial-birth abortion and supports conscience clauses. His opponent, Democrat and Catholic Martha Coakley is so virulently ant-life that she opposes conscience clauses and has even gone so far as to suggest that practicing Catholics should not work in emergency rooms. The Catholic in the race has subsequently been accused of anti-Catholicism. You can’t make this stuff up.
So now that pro-life Democrats and Senate Catholics have completely failed us, our only hope is a pro-choice Republican.
While I remain somewhat skeptical of all the polling (this is Massachusetts after all), I will continue to pray, pray for life, pray for hope, pray for all those children, and pray for the pro-choice Republican to win and the Catholic to lose.
I sure hope God doesn’t get confused, because I sure am.
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America is funny- truly a modern contradiction, your entire system is. Kinda makes one laugh, how can you love or hate such a confused people or country. Yup, pro-death catholic must lose. Pro-death other guy must win, like betting between China and Russia in the cold war.
Kind of makes my stomach churn. I am so glad I don’t live in Massachusetts. I can’t stomach the whole, “I’m voting for the lessor of two evils” thing.
Pat, the problem is twofold: 1) the USCCB turns down the serious proposal to use the SUM = Respect Life + Respect God approach to improve pro-life STRATEGY 2) Republicans turn down the GIFT unwittingly given them by Democrats in 2006 when then Senate candidate Harold Ford unwisely tried oneupsmanship: “Republicans fear the Lord but the Democrats fear and love the Lord…..” Oh yeah? VERY important to see & ponder the top and bottom you-tubes in:
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/10/29/video-harold-ford-says-republicans-don’t-love-but-just-fear-god/ The Gospel of Life (n9) provides the basis for including Respect God and God’s Rights: “…for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself”. Since “Respect Life” is the proper approach to attacks on human life, then “Respect God” is equally the proper approach to attacks on God Himself! If only Republicans will now see in 2010 they don’t have to become “Billy Sunday” preachers to unashamedly defend God under attack!
My only hope is in Christ Jesus! I think the greatest evil is not the evil we wholeheartedly reject, but the evil that good people are willing to bring to their friends and family and coerce them to support. Such are my thoughts about candidate Brown. I fear that the man who wants the peoples seat and who has garnered support from good people, may just use this seat to sit on his supporters, their families and their friends.
Some of the problems is with the Catholic Church. Ted Kennedy was pro-choice—the Bishop did not officiate at his funeral Mass, but he was right “out front—in sight”! Wonder what the Catholic church is saying to Martha Coakley who is pro-choice-anti life and against Catholics working in emergency rooms. The Church calls some of us Catholics “cafeteria” Catholics—-I think the Church is a Cafeteria Church. They will come down on the little guy but not the elitists.
Dear A. Whittaker: Why knock Christ’s Church? The USCCB is NOT the Church but a “Conference” having no mandate to teach, hence more subject to err. And did not the Father allow the worst Traitor to come from the select Twelve? Did Jesus not say the gates of hell would not PREVAIL, meaning there WILL BE rocky times for the Church down the Ages? Why jump ship when rocky times are OUR times? True Catholics see God’s wisdom in His Church’s “hard teaching” against artificial contraception & abortion. Scott Brown is mostly against the H-C bill on good secular grounds, perhaps the very reason pro-choice Brown in “3 to 1 Massachusetts” will be able tap off ENOUGH votes, today, from pro-choice “Catholic” Coakly. If so, it will be another example of how God can derive good from unwanted evils. Cathy, I doubt Mr. Brown is as disappointing as CINO Coakly. Take heart.
I am continually amazed and distressed that people who are pro-life use the term pro-choice to describe people who think women should be able to abort their children if they so desire. There is no choice for the child! PLEASE use the right terminology - it is pro-abortion, not pro-choice.
I simply failed to use my usual quotation marks on ‘pro-choice’, earlier. Indeed “pro-choice” IS pro-abortion when it’s properly discussed and of course in all reality for the baby, though not all “pro-choicers” are equally culpable: the Catholic Church (CC) in 1974 recognized that even well educated Catholics can sinlessly doubt early personhood. That’s STILL TRUE, today, though the doubting does not excuse aborting. Instead, the CC applies its firm teaching “None Dare RISK Murder” which the USCCB will not or seldom will use. Today’s voting for “pro-choice Brown” is NOT a case of accepting the “lesser of two evils”; Romans 3:8’s “do no evil that good may come” prohibits that. Instead, it’s a matter of “limiting the evil” when not possible to make a total change to ZERO abortions. Finally, for strategic purposes as in tonight’s close race, it’s better to use “pro-choice” Brown which is less alarming than “pro-abort Brown” to avoid inducing wrong thoughts in tonight’s miseducated Catholic voters about undue concern over losing their soul by voting for Brown.
After reading Deacon Keith Fournier’s rather gushy article on Scott Brown’s win (touching on his pro-abortion stance just briefly), I can only throw up my arms (and my breakfast!) and quote Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer:
“We are reminded that even supposed political victories are temporary, and that the solution to these problems is not political, even if we have to keep up the political fight and our activist efforts,” said Father Euteneuer. “We are called to prayer, fasting and conversion… only God can put a stop to the horror of abortion now.”
Jeanette, kindly check my 8:05 AM comment. See that EV n9 contains the basis for preaching Respect God WITH Respect Life. Archbishop Chaput and other prelates knew of my proposal in 2007 and 2008, whose SUCCESS-INDICATORS as sent to them are summarized below. Key bishops knew but none would act on them for the 2008 election:
“1) respect for God’s Personal Rights over His embryos (for we humans can empathize with Jesus’ Personal Property since we want others to respect our personal property), 2) emphasis on one’s personal relationship with Jesus (absolutely crucial but little heard in Catholic settings ), 3) taking account of peoples’ real & sinless doubts about early personhood – doubts often leading to rationalizing an abortion under great pressure if one focuses first on life (whose soul-status is what is doubted!), and 4) educating believers to focus first on God and God’s Rights only in order to avoid succumbing to doubts under stress.”
TOGETHER with God and without ego, we can Greatly minimize abortion. See that the above indicators build upon our human nature, in accord with St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching that Grace similarly so-builds.
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