A Good First Step: Archbishop Chaput Corrects Senator Biden On Abortion

Here's the link: Archbishop Chaput Corrects Senator Biden on Abortion

My thoughts:

This is good, but the fundamental problem is with Catholics thinking that remaining within a political party that supports abortion as a civil right and attempting to dismiss this fact by pointing to conservative support for things like specific wars (or war in general) or the death penalty neutralizes the scandal involved in belonging to such a group is a moral option.

When will Church leaders tell Catholics that it's as wrong to belong to organizations that support the culture of death, most notably through support for the legal option to kill preborn babies, as it is to belong to a Masonic lodge?

And when will so-called Catholic politicians who support legal abortion be told, without equivocation, by all bishops (including the Holy Father) that, by supporting the culture of death, these so-called Catholic politicians are not in union with Rome, may not receive Holy Communion, and will be excommunicated if they persist in supporting legal abortion?

Any thoughts?

See also: Can Catholics Support Obama?

Comments

[angela]

YEAH!!!
and now that AB Niederauer has invited Nancy to speak with him, when will he go after San Fran Mayor Gavin Newsome (the "pro abortion, gay marriage" Catholic)?

[Loyolalaw98]

Thomistic,

Great piece.

I don't know what is "holding off the hand" of the Holy father on this.

Malachi Martin once said to me, in a conversation that we were having about some Sede Vacantists, "we've only got one pope at a time - and whoever he is - we have to deal with that reality."

He mused further, in a way that I can ill synopsize, that as a monarchy - the Church can work well - exceedingly well - when the monarch (i.e., the Pope) understands his role as such and uses his authority.

We can only pray that we will live to see the day...

[Patt S.]

Sunday's gospel: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he does not listen, take one or two along with you, if he refuses to listen to them, tell the church and if he refuses to listen even to the church treat him as you would a Gentile or tax collector."
When our "catholic" politicians ignore the teachings of the church and its clergy then they are called heretics and have excommunicated themselves.
Oddly enough, they think the church is at fault and not themselves.. that is called pride.

[ATHELSTAN]

The monarchical papacy is dead. Only those who want to believe the pope without question on abortion will support him, and everyone else will continue with his/her "mix and match" brand of cafeteria Catholicism. Like it or not, that is the future.
This pope believes in using persuasion. Excommunication? An effective tool for the middle ages when it led to shunning, punishment, and even death. Short of that, Catholics who are excommunicated will either join one of the many break away churches with valid sacraments and a validly ordained hierarchy, and there are many,or they will simply ignore Benedict XVI altogether. He knows this too. Hence, excommunication isn't an arrow in Benedict's quiver.

[Patt S.]

There is self excommunication--which means one is on the road to Hell no matter how many sacrilegious communions they continue to receive, nor how they lie to themselves. So the Pope really doesn't have to excommunicate anyone, they've done it for him when they persist in their sin.

[james rich]

Bishop Chaput is going to be interviewed for two hours on the Hugh Hewitt radio show today (9-12), for those who have been critical of him. I'm sure, if you miss it, that you'll be able to download the two hours through Townhall.com--Hugh Hewitt.

I think, for those of you who have been a bit negative, might be pleased with what he says.

I'll be listening to those parts I can.

[James M. Essig]

I had some musings on the meaning and nature of life, in GOD's creatures, that special creative act of GOD.

For those who are considering an abortion, supporting an abortion, or who are indifferent on the matter, perhaps the words of encouragement below will lead you to reconsider. God loves that baby you are considering to abort and God loves you and always will love you immeasurably infinitely regardless of whether or not you follow through with your plans. But please remember, the tears that your Spiritual Mother in Heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Three Divine Persons, and the human heart, soul and body of Our Lord Jesus Christ will shed if and when it happens. You will also hurt the heart of the Gaurdian Angel of the Baby you would abort. Even though angels are pure spirits and have no bodies, brains, or central nervous systems, they are not beyond the effective life and will be deeply mournful of their aborted children, but being good spirits in Heaven they will always love you and will ardently desire you to seek forgiveness for any culpable acts of abortion you procure or support.

We of the Catholic Faith tend to hold the view that the life of the Human Person is the soul; that animating principle by which we are constituted as spiritual, free, and rational creatures.

The tradition of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Scholastic Theology holds that the Human Soul is Spiritual, Simple, Unextended, Naturally Immortal, Indestructible Per Addends and Per se, Free, and Rational; a first and substantial spiritual principle created directly by God our of nothing and not in need of any creature for its continued existence including the body and brain.

Our Born Again Christian Brothers and Sisters tend to refer to what we Catholics call the soul as the human spirit. It is ashame that speaking about the properties of the human soul as outlined in Scholasticism is no longer in vogue, even at the pulpits of many Roman Catholic Bishops. We have truely lossed a sense of the spiritual as indicated by the Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima and the alleged Apparition of Mary at Medjugorie.

But there is yet a higher type of life and that is the life of grace that in some way,
I believe all of humanity possesses by virtue of Christ's Life, Passion, and Death on the Cross and His Resurrection From the Dead. At the very least, Catholic Theologians will all admit to the existence of Supernatural Life in all of those in the state of grace.

In addition, the Catholic Faith holds that the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, for which all human persons are eligible recipients or potentially eligible recipients, regardless of whether they are married or not, in the state of mortal or venial sin or not, or whatever their state in life, per dues into eternity regardless of whether one ends up in Heaven, Purgatory then Heaven, or Hell. Even the most evil and hate filled sins cannot erase this sacramental character that is an indelible character imprinted within the Human Soul within and transforming its very essence. The sacrament of Holy Orders also instills its unique character into the souls of its recipients and reaches its perfection in the persons who are Consecrated as Bishops.

The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony gives its recipients the special grace to live out their lives as spouses and family men and women in such a pure manner that no other sacrament can. No other human beings besides those who are married can have a consummated and conjugal love that is pure, sinless, and virtuous as well as full of the grace that God bestows on married couples. One great dignity of any marriage that is validly performed whether within the Catholic Church, within other religious Faiths, and even by the Justice of the Peace under the authority vested in him or her (and God is the Author of all authority), is that the consummated and conjugal love can lead to the procreation of new human persons; human persons who otherwise would have never had the chance to exist.

So, for all of you family men and women, when people deride you for having children, or for planning children, and even those of you who are planning to get married and start a family but are not yet married, know that the Lord God Almighty is behind you one hundred percent. Know that you will be partly responsible in a direct way, for bringing into existence new human beings who will be forever grateful for your bringing them into the world.

I mention the above dignity of the life and grace of marriage because of the anti-life attitudes that have become prevalent through the Globe that very wrongly deride heterosexual conjugal and consummated love as a primitive drive or base instinct instead of an act that reflects the type of intense love that exist between the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity between themselves for each other and for themselves.

The Catholic Church also recognizes the supernatural life of all persons in Heaven and in Purgatory. Furthermore, the Catholic Church as well as most of our Non-Catholic but Christian Brothers and Sisters recognize that at the end of time, the Body of each Human Person will be Resurrected from the grave and reunited to the soul that animated it. The Bodies of all Human beings whether or not they go to Heaven or Hell will be incorruptible although the bodies of those who end up in Hell will undergo some sort of suffering although at this point in history, we are really not given to know of the nature of the suffering.

The human bodies of those in Heaven will be glorified just as Christ Risen Body was Glorified. The bodies as such will be spiritualized in a manner that we cannot comprehend, and will be in perfect health although their vital processes will be performed in a currently unknown yet to be revealed manner. The bodies will be resplendent with radiance, life, and light of a spiritual nature and will no longer undergo any form of suffering or deprivation. This also applies by corollary to our brains, which are part of our bodies.
Now speaking of the mystery of the Life of God, God, whose nature is at one with His existence, is absolutely incomprehensibly, indescribably, infinite, unbounded, and limitless life incarnate that takes the form of each of the Three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity, Thrice Holy. We have all seen glowing photos of beautiful women or handsome men. Well, God’s life is unimaginably more beautiful, glowing, vital and intense as well as the life of each of His Divine Persons. We are all called to partake of this beautiful life by adoption as Sons and Daughters of God, as Gods beloved adopted Children. To paraphrase Sacred Scripture, "What we will be is not yet given for us to know, but we know we will be like Him" regarding our call to be the elect at the Final Ressurection of the Dead.

Since God is beyond all words. concepts, or definitions that any creature no matter how great could describe God or used to contemplate God as God is, I have often wondered if God nature somehow goes beyond life itself. I will refer to this going beyond life as hyper-life, trans-life, super-life, meta-life or whatever. Perhaps God goes beyond this first level of transcendence in the form of hyper-hyper life, trans-trans-life, super-super-life, meta-meta-life, etc. as a second level of transcendence. Perhaps there are 3rd, 4th, 5th... levels of transcendence of life. Perhaps there is such a large Cardinality of Infinity of such transcendent of life levels to God that all of God's creatures working together, including all angels that were created and any angels that will be created but have not yet been created as known only to God, all intelligent extraterrestrial beings that exist and that ever will exist, and all human souls that exist and ever will exist, working with maximal precision and with any and all help from any and all conceivable forms of computers could not define even symbolically this Cardinality of Infinity let alone visualize it or comprehend it.

Since God is absolutely inexpressibly beyond and above every name, idea, or thought that can be imagined in this life and in the life and the world to come, to paraphrase the Bible, whether or not my above speculations about a transcendent of life nature aspect of God are true, a complete knowledge and comprehension of such by us creatures given all eternity to develop such would be simply empty straw or rubbish compared to what God really is and God's knowledge of Himself. In fact, such understanding in his creatures would be utterly nonsense and nothing compared to the true nature of God and how God sees himself.

In fact, God the Father sees Himself so well that He vision of Himself begets a Second Divine Person of Co-equal majesty and glory. The love between these two Divine Persons is manifest in the Procession of the Holy Spirit, of coequal glory and majesty to GOD the Father and GOD the Son.

Now taking all of this into account, feel totally secure that each of You is loved as the unique person you are with infinite love by God and Each of the Three Divine Persons, each of which is completely God. The Trinity Thrice Holy loves you more than you will ever imagine, even when you get to Heaven and even after the Final Resurrection and all of the additional glory and grace that awaits You then. God sent His only perfectly obedient Son to become man and die on the Cross for each one of You individually! God loves you as such regardless of the Faith you were raised in, regardless of whether you have rejected your Faith, regardless of the Sins you may have committed or might commit in the future. God even loves the souls in Hell just as he loves all and each of you and me. I pray daily that all of you as well as myself end up in Heaven and have one big everlasting family reunion. Party, and vacation.

May the Good Lord bring You into the Fullness of His Glory.

Best;

Jim

[Kris]

The thing to remember is that a political party is NOT a church. There is absolutely no expectation that you support the entire platform of a political party in order to belong to it, only that you find its platform preferable to any of the others.

Frankly, I share the view that abortion is wrong, but I also hold the view that a prohibition on abortion, enforced by the government, does not necessarily make things any better.

Generally speaking, abortions are procured by young women in the middle class whose class values around what degree of social status must be attained before having a child overwhelm any moral sensibilities they have around the life of the child. Whether the abortions they procure are legal or not, this will continue to be the case. If anything, we need more charitable outreach to these women to alleviate their fears of social ruin and free them to do the right thing.

Fighting the culture of death with threats (legal or otherwise) won't work. It needs to be fought with Caritas and Agape.

Go and read Deus Caritas Est (Benedict XVI's first encyclical, readily available on the Vatican website), and it should be quite clear that the primary responsibility of a Catholic around the issue of abortion is to love the expectant mother and expected child so fervently than an abortion would be inconceivable. Advancing a social order with appropriate laws is secondary.

[Gene Climer]

If you feel good about Obama, you might want to watch this video:

http://americaschoicenow.com/

Thanks,
Gene