as always :) it depends on who he is running against.  In all likelihood Santorum will be the best candidate.  So I give it a qualified, yes, but….

Very glad for this—thanks for writing it.

Hindsight is always 20/20 ... that’s something my parents often told me.  That rings true of Santorum in this incident.  Specter going from RINO to full on democrat in a short 5 years is proof that Santorum made the wrong choice.  That said, please don’t forget that no one in politics has done more for the prolife cause than Rick Santorum.  No one.  Please don’t forget that fact when you would criticize him for supporting Specter in 2004.

To be Christian is to forgive.  Santorum should be forgiven for this unfortunate endorsement.  He’s also to be applauded for all he’s done to advance the cause of life!

There are few who have been as unabashedly pro life as Rick Santorum. Without Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court, we are toast.

I am not ready to throw out the “strategic” vote. I am not sure, for instance, that I would not vote for someone who was pro life on everything but in vitro fertilization (which is absolutely wrong). Yet that type of vote might make the most sense at a particular moment.

If Rick Santorum runs for president, he will have my funding, my prayers and my vote. If he were to become president - happy days are here again!!

Yes, I will forgive him and support his candidacy for President.  He is the best choice.

So pro-choice Specter ushers through two pro-life Supreme Court justices; but “pro-life” Senator Ben Nelson (who also voted to confirm Sotomayor) and “pro-life” Rep Bart Stupak get Obamacare as we now know it through the Senate and House, respectively (no one can seriously defend Stupak’s compromise).  Pro-lifers need to start looking at pro-life results rather than pro-life titles.

If Santorum recognizes the endorsement as a mistake, then yes, I can forgive it.

Even the late, great, Paul Weyrich endorsed Specter in that primary.  And no one - absolutly no one - can challange the great cultural and pro-life legacy of that great man.  It was a political decision driven by various factors that was certainly justifed at the time.  Recall, it was Specter’s cross examination of Anita Hill that exposed her as the fraud many of us belive she was.  Without Specter’s cross it is questionable whether we would have gotten Justice Thoams.

I wholeheartedly support Specter for whatever he chooses to do.  He was my choice before and is certainly my choice today.  God Bless him!

I’m having some reservations about getting past him “throwing Toomey under the bus”. I was absolutely crushed when he did that. As Catholics we should know that we don’t do wrong to get the right result. I have some trust issues with him.

As a Catholic and a citizen I think it is time we question every candidate’s stance without reliance upon endorsements.  If a man endorses another, we should expect that the endorsement is made not for the purpose of what the man has promised to do, but that the candidate is supported for the principles he holds.  This is the great and grievous disappointment that I have with Rick Santorum as well as many of the Right to Life groups in our country.  We do not get from the horses mouth what a candidate stands for, we simply get who stands with the candidate.  I still can’t get over the right to life endorsement given to Scott Brown.  It would have been better for them to endorse neither candidate than to compromise their stand on the right to life.

As a pro-lifer and a Christian, I forgive him.  But that does require me to trust him, much less vote for him. 

After getting burned, I earned the right to wear asbestos.  As the adage goes, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Rick is a fine, decent man and I understand the political decision he made to go along with President Bush and support Specter.  What concerns me more is why he lost his 2006 relection.  As troubling as that is, what is even more troubling is how church going Catholics can remain the largest single voting block for the pro-abortion party.  And that includes the US bishops who, it has been estimated by someone well known on EWTN that, probably half of the US bishops voted for the pro-infanticide, pro-abortion Obama.  That is the real problem we have electing the right people - Catholic Democrat voters.

I agree with ‘stillbelieve’:  If Catholics would just vote like Catholics we wouldn’t be dealing with pro-abortion justices or laws that slide down the slippery slope of federally funded (or not) abortions, and whether (or not) they are included in any fedreal legislation.  Alas, the cafeteria Catholic is far more common than one who fully embraces his or her faith.

A straight line is always the shortest distance between two points, but…sometimes not the best route.  Politics in a democracy is most always messy.  Sometimes an end run is called for.  Life is not always pure black and white.  Mostly it is various shades of gray.
Sen. Santorum will get serious consideration from me should he run for anything…but (here we go again), who else is running?  And how do we get over the goal line?  He certainly has a high place in the next conservative administration.

Should Notre Dame be forgiven?

Fr. Jenkins is “proud” of what they did. http://www.FreeTheND88.org

Of course you forgive him.The Senate works on collegiality and he had served with Specter throughout his career.Look at the big picture.He is pro-life through and through.I wish we had someone like him in my state(NY).

I have mixed thoughts on this.
I felt in 2000 that I needed to vote for George Bush because he seemed to me to both have a fair chance to win AND a reasonable willingness to promote a pro-life ideal and help bring about smaller government.

Unfortunately, I’ve many times since wondered if I should’ve voted for Pat Buchanan, regardless of my misgivings regarding his ability to win.  I’ve also wondered if I should’ve written in Ron Paul.
Simple problem here in that voting for a candidate who’s most likely to win and more likely than others to be Pro-Life hasn’t precisely netted us with very much.

That said, unless something changes dramatically—quite possible—I can see voting for Sen Santorum far more easily than almost anyone else I’ve heard from.  Heck, I voted for McCain two years ago, knowing full well that he wasn’t an absolute knight in shining armor on abortion.  He was, even so, much better than Obama for his intentions.

I guess it comes down this way for me:  Say we wound up with choice between Hillary Clinton and Rick Santorum, from Democrat and Republican tickets respectively.
Given the Secretary’s track record, does anyone really wish to say that they’ll vote for her, not him?
If someone does, I fear heartily for your Catholic faith and your soul!

John - two things.  First, the pro-abortion Democrat Party and their legislators in the Senate are the ONLY reason we haven’t been able to get the kind, and number, of judges on the US Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v Wade.  And if the Democrats keep the majority in the Senate after this November 2 elections, we will never get the chance again to get enough prolife, Constitutional judges on the court because Obama and the Democrats will stop at nothing to stack the court with proabort judges in the last two years of his first term.  And if he wins a second term – it is all over with as far as ever saving the unborn; as well as our liberty.  Liberty will cease to exist in the world.  It was the US that helped bring freedom to the Eastern Block countries.  If there is no freedom in America, there will be no freedom any where.  That leads me to the second point.

Second, the only reason the pro-abortion Democrat Party has the power to block such judges is because of the church-going Catholics who vote for them.  Catholics are the largest, single voting block for the pro-abortion party.  They remain so because the US bishops made so-called “social justice” issues “prolife” in the mid 1980s after the US bishops adopted the concept crafted by the head of the Archdiocese of Chicago who became Chairman of the bishops’ ProLife Committee in the mid 1980s and sold them on the concept of “a consistent ethic of life.”  Chicago - the most corrupt, unethical Democrat city in the country, as many of you are starting to discover watching Obama, who picked Chicago to start his political career where he became the leader of “community organizers.”  ACORN were the foot soldiers leading to sub-prime mortgages and the collapse of our housing market and economy.  And the Chicago Archdiocese gave millions of dollars to ACORN for organizing the “poor” to fight for lowering the mortgage requirements to get a loan.  Oh, and Bernadin’s reason for expanding the definition of prolife?  He wanted to keep prolife from “falling completely under the control of the right wing conservatives who were becoming its dominant sponsors.”  Read that to mean the Republican Party.  So, Bernardin and the bishops threw the unborn “under the bus” to allow Catholics to have a clear conscience to remain in the pro-abortion party.  (Question: if the issue wasn’t abortion, but let’s say racism and the KKK, do you think the bishops would have concocted a scheme that would have allowed Catholics to “morally” remain in such a political party?)

So, don’t go losing any sleep on who to vote for 18 months from now.  What you need to “worry about” is our church leadership continuing the division they created with the redefinition of the word “prolife,” pitting the original Catholic pro-lifers against the newly created “social justice” Catholics.  The bishops show complete incompetence in understanding what they did, and show no interest or ability in correcting it.  Catholic bishops are responsible for this mess our country is suffering under dictatorial control of Democrats which includes the continuation of the murder of unborn babies, now in the range of 52,000,000. 

Too harsh, you say?  I’ll retract what I said if someone can show me in our bible where Jesus said we are to GET GOVERNMENT to do what he direct us to do, ourselves.  If Jesus never directed us to get government to do it, why are the bishops spending our contributions to do it with over 250 staffers in the USCCB offices in Washington D.C., supporting all Democrat policies except abortion?  Why are they not condemning the Democrat Party?  They certainly would be if that party was the home of the KKK.

Hi stillbelieve,
I haven’t talked to you in several weeks; I imagine we’ve both been busy.

The essence of your comments seems to be this:  Abortion remains the law of the land today, primarily because the bishops chose to fill their roles poorly.  They chose politics over preaching and teaching, some amount of pragmatism (I guess) over principle.
Certainly you can blame Bernardin for essentially being the ringleader, but don’t forget that many of his brother bishops had to be complicit for his “ring” to have an impact.  Frankly, in the last ten years, as I’ve learned more about what our episcopate has done since Vatican II, I’ve become more and more horrified by what I’ve learned about what they did.
And yes, I remember very well how “social justice” issues were drawn into the mix during the 80s.  That effort explains a great deal of why I came out of my teens with a very confused understanding of what the Church actually taught and teaches.

Frankly, our bishops are “lucky” that I’m a practicing Catholic due to my continuing faith in Christ, not their political activism.  If I held my allegiance to faith only for purposes of political maneuvering, I would’ve been gone out the door 10 years ago.

On a hopeful note though, the internet has given us access to the words, thoughts, and deeds of many priests and bishops who are true sons of Christ, who have little patience with all the shenanigans of former days.

May God bless our faithful clergy, our gutsy politicians (few though they are), and our ever-more-connected faithful laity!

stillbelieve,
I noted the same thing about people wanting the government to do what Jesus told us, individually, to do.  In a long back-and-forth with my wife’s uncle in 08, I noted that Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to petition Caesar to create a program taking money from all over the empire in order to feed the hungry, he told them to do it themselves.  I also noted that, by having the government do the work (by just taking my money for the “common good”), I was losing the opportunity to choose to follow Jesus’ commands.  I have no choice, which means it doesn’t benefit my immortal soul.  In fact, I may resent the programs, and in turn resent those who are helped by such programs.  (Note that this doesn’t just apply to me, but to all.  A person struggling with their faith may consider his required financial support of these program to be sufficient, and therefore not be fully embracing Jesus’ command to help others.)

What worries me is not that he repented but the justification he gives for his so called repentance.
To endorse a pro choice is to endorse a pro murder, someone who doesn’t give a cent for the life of a human being.
BASIC:
Jesus would have never ever done that. The end doesn’t justify the means.
If a person’s moral is lax enough to negotiates life, he is not trustwothy.

Once again, we seem to be looking in the wrong place - square at the politicans. And, they continue to fool us again and again..Why not try something different and write posts focusing on men and women who have experienced abortion first hand in their life, and grieved later the magnitude of what is lost. A well kept secret in this age of mass media - post-suffering from abortion. Real life stories that we need to hear over and over again to help us truly understand what we’re talking about here.

Patrick, do you really think people don’t know the lasting impact abortion has on those who submit to one?  Certainly Catholics know that, but that doesn’t motivate Catholic Democrats, politicians and laity, to stop supporting the pro-abortion party.  The US Supreme Court, the Congress and the bishops have made abortion political.  That is where it started and that is where it needs to be reversed.  That is why we are talking about politicians.

I suppose I do in the sense that if they truly did, so many people wouldn’t continue to support it every election, would they? And, I’m not certain that all Catholics do know it, with so many supporting the Democratic party and the many Catholic pro-abortion candidates who run for office. What I believe will ultimately spark a reversal is a change in the hearts of the people, Catholic or not. And, ordinary people who speak about how it devastated their lives are far more inclined to change hearts than the actions of yet another politician who simply did not keep his word.

Patrick, do you think the bishops, priest and religious know what affects abortion has on women?  Dealing with their sin in the confessional and in private counseling with the women who have the abortion, and the family members of the women, and their boyfriends and husbands, must give them a good idea what it is like.  With that in mind,  my pastor told me he could not vote for a friend of mine who was prolife and a Republican running unopposed for Governor of California because, he, the pastor was a Democrat.  I asked him, “What about abortion?”  He answered, “I’m not worried about the babies, they’re in heaven.”  The pro-abortion Democrat won the Governor’s House.

If that is not bad enough, why didn’t Cardinal George, the head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, or the USCCB, write a letter to the Democrat nominee for President this past election asking Barrack Obama to clarify his answer to Pastor Rick Warren’s question during his TV, hour long, one on one interview with Obama?  The question was, “When do you think human rights should be bestowed on a baby?”  Obama answered, “…the answer to that question is above my pay grade.”  A highly touted Constitutional lawyer from Harvard hasn’t heard of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution?  And a black lawyer at that?  Where were the bishops in getting a real answer out of him for us Catholics???  Like in the Sherlock Homes mystery story, his side kick asked him, “How did you know he was the one who did it?”  Homes answered, “Because the dog didn’t bark.”

A highly respected person known through EWTN, said in a radio interview after the election, and the bishops post election conference, which that person attended, that about have of the bishops probably voted for Obama based the impression bishops were giving at that conference.

So, if the bishops and a long time pastor I’ve known for a number of years are proud of being registered in the pro-abortion party, which most priest and religious are based on my own investigation here in one of the most Republican counties in America, I don’t think it would make any difference to any Catholic who remains attached to the Democrat Party the torment women go through as a result of having an abortion.  Their self identity is tied to being a Democrat more than it is being Catholic.  And the bishops tying so-called “social justice” issues to prolife in the mid ‘80s, soothes the conscience of Catholic Democrats because they now believe that their carrying for life doesn’t end at birth (as if Republicans carrying does?)  Besides blaspheming the Holy Spirit in church on Sundays, they are filled with pride in themselves being “so” prolife and caring.  The pain women suffer is just the price Catholic Democrats will just have to bare for all the “good” they are supporting being Democrats.

Opps.  Third paragraph, second line down should read, “...that about HALF of the bishops probably voted for Obama based the impression bishops were giving at that conference.”

I’ve read in polls now and then that many of my generation—and younger—when polled about their religious beliefs, will provide surprising answers.  It seems that many who self-identify as Catholic or Christian will proceed to deny many key tenets of faith.

When asked how their belief system could be compatible with the faith they declare, they’ll state that they don’t believe that a church has the authority to declare rules or set discipline.  So long as we all “love each other”, that’s what’s important, and who cares about all the old-fashioned rules.

I once thought this a tragic statement by my generation, but I’m starting to think we may have learned from..our elders.  Regrettably, too many have failed to understand what the Council fathers of Vatican II actually taught, but believe they can make up their own faith as they proceed.

Small wonder then that the Catholic community, which otherwise might’ve been politically strong enough to eliminate various social ills including abortion, has effectively either fallen silent on the matter or subscribes to beliefs that are distinctly anti-Catholic.

Makes me wonder when the episcopate will get their collective shepherd’s staffs in gear and start correcting people from the wolves.  Even those wolves in Catholic clothing.  I think they’re long overdue.

stilbelieve,

Agreed. Perhaps the biggest point is pride. No doubt, Catholic teaching seems to takes a back seat to political beliefs these days.

I like Santorum, and was not aware until this post he was involved in this type of thing. And I was very disappointed that he would try to use what I believe to be twisted logic of voting for a pro-abortion, lifelong politician in the name of pro-life.

There are still a lot of good priests out there. And good people will listen to them. But, God can use His Holy Spirit to melt the hearts of the bad ones. And, my primary point is that He may be open to using other ways to bring good from this evil rather than placing so much emphasis on the voting block, which often seems to fail us. Perhaps the testimony of those who have suffered from abortion first hand, or the example of those that prayerfully witness for the unborn outside of clinics, or those that make it their lifes work to counsel women or men suffering from abortion; all with the purpose of changing hearts. I also believe that He wants us to pray vigorously for our priests, since they are under constant attack these days, and some including your pastor, confused.

Even though my inclination is to place my trust in men and women of power to do the right thing, I cant do this exclusively in the current climate. Too much corruption, and disappointment. I will continue to vote pro-life right down the ballot with great hope, as it is my duty as a Cathlic, but will at the same time look elsewhere for God’s examples of Humility.

Yes, I forgave Santorum before he admitted his mistake. Because I understood why though I was disappointed. I would certainly give him all due consideration if he ran for President.

Simply put - When it became “Hard” to be Catholic, - WHen it COUNTED - Santorum caved.  I Called his office and was told the President told himn to do it, and he had no choice.  Yes he did,,,,,all the “Talk” produced no action.

As disappointed and disgusted as I was with Santorum,,,,, the Silence of a vocal Catholic Community that all but stalks Democrats to see if they are taking Communion was a clear sign to me there is a part of our Catholic Church that has been hi-jacked for political purposes,,,,and I pray the harm it is doing to our institution will stop. 

Where were Catholic Community Leaders when Christie chose Pro Choice Guadagno for his Lt. Governor,,,, where were they when he said he pas pro-life but - He would not use his position as Gov to “Force that down people’s throats”? 

Are we waiting for Bill Donohue from the Catholic League to say beans about that??  THe use of our faith for political purposes is causing great harm to our Church.

Jane, where were you and the Catholic bishops when Democrat Presidential nominee, Obama, told Pastor Rick Warren that “it was above my pay grade to know when a baby should be given human rights?”  Where were you and the bishops when Catholic Democrats elected Obama, a pro-abort and a pro-infanticidor former Illinois State Legislative Senator, to be the Democrat presidential nominee?  And where were you and the bishops when over 50% of church-going, Lord’s Prayer praying, Profession of Faith professing, Communion receiving Catholics voted for Obama to be President of the United States?

Where were you when the U.S Bishops changed the meaning of “prolife,” a word coined to counter the pro-aborts calling themselves “pro-choice?”  They changed it to mean a whole number of socialist issues that have nothing to do with the direct murder of innocent human life, which are neither right or wrong, or even sinful.  Where were you when the bishops supported a bigoted Cardinal who wanted to keep the prolife movement from “falling completely into the hands of the right wing conservatives” and voted with his expanding the definition of prolife to include so-called “social justice issues” which enabled Catholic Democrats to remain in the pro-abortion party and becoming hypocrites every Sunday?  Every Sunday church-going Catholics, including all the clergy, profess to believe “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, and pray the Lord’s Prayer for His “will to be done on earth…and led not into temptation, but delivered from evil.”  Is God in contradiction with Himself?  Does He create life so that it can be aborted?  Or are Catholic Democrats in contradiction with what they say they believe and pray for?
And are such Catholics blaspheming the Holy Spirit in doing so?  You know, the only sin that is not forgivable?

Sorry that you are so upset with the lack of Santorum’s prolife purity.  I am too, but I understand why he did that.  And he has learned – and says he wouldn’t do it again.  We all have learned.  What have you learned from so-called Catholics who are U.S. Senators that present themselves and receive the Holy Eucharist and who are responsible for abortion-on-demand remaining the law-of-the-land?  What have you learned about the seriousness of the Catholic Church’s teaching on scandal when the bishops place the Body of Christ into the hands of the pro-abortion politicians and give High Mass funerals in Cathedrals for politicians who were in the forefront of keeping abortion-on-demand legal all their political careers?

Just how pure have you, and over half the church-going Catholics, including Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Monsignors, priest and religious been in the battle to restore the right to life to the unborn?  Just how pure have you, and the list above, been in the fight for the rest of us – THE BORN! – to be able to keep our right to life in our future medical care now the Democrat Congressional dictators have taken that away from us in Ohamcare which will be fully implemented by 2013, the year the veins used in my urgent, quadruple heart by-pass surgery will reach the end of their ten year life expediency, necessitating, perhaps, a new heart bypass operation?  Will you and the USCCB make sure I get that?  I DON’T THINK SO!

Let’s talk about Santorum’s purity some more, if you like to.