Roman Catholic Blog

Isn't "pro-life Democrat" an oxymoron?

Confusion in the ranks

Orange County Democrats befuddled over endorsements for pro-life primary candidate

"Orange County businessman Phu Nguyen, a Democrat seeking his party’s nomination for the 68th Assembly District, has won endorsements from a long list of party bigwigs, including U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, state Sen. Lou Correa, Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, and Assembly Majority Whip Fiona Ma. But there’s something wrong with this picture: Nguyen is pro-life, his endorsers pro-abortion.

“I’m Catholic and I’m going to stick to my values,” Nguyen recently told the Orange County Register.

“I’ve previously reported that Democrat Joe Dovinh has attracted skepticism in his bid for the 68th Assembly District, but now the establishment-backed Democrat in the race is also raising hackles,” wrote Register political reporter Martin Wisckol in a March 19 column.

Democrats backed away from Dovinh, the other candidate from their party in the race, after Wisckol reported earlier that he was registered as an independent until 2008 and supported John McCain for president against Barack Obama. “That’s led some Democrats to suspect he’s a decoy plant by the GOP, which he denies,” wrote Wisckol.

Wisckol quoted Orange County Democratic Party activist Reggie Mundekis as saying of Nguyen, “I don’t know how he got pushed ahead” by party leaders, especially since Dovinh’s views on abortion are much closer to the party line on the issue.

According to Wisckol, Dovinh has said he is “respectful of a woman’s right to chose when her life is in imminent danger. I believe abortion is a personal decision best left to the influence of family members, religious leaders and medical professionals.”

According to Nguyen’s website, he has also been endorsed by Democratic Assembly members Warren Furutani, Tony Mendoza, Anthony Portanino, Dave Jones, Jim Beall, Kevin De Leon, Mary Hayashi, Mike Eng, Hector De La Torre, and Paul Fong.

The oddity of having a pro-lifer as the Democratic Party’s “establishment” candidate in the 68th District, may, however, be of little significance in the final analysis. “On the Republican side of the race, Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor is given the edge by experts over county schools Trustee Long Pham,” wrote Wisckol. “And Republicans have a 41 percent to 33 percent in voter registration, making the GOP nominee the favorite come November.”

Still, Nguyen remains optimistic. “Forty-one to 33 is a little overwhelming,” Nguyen told the Register. “But when you looks at the numbers on the Republican side who are Vietnamese and decline-to-state, we’re almost to 50 percent.”

See: http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=342846e6-166a-4527-ab06-146340aabed8

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I'm hoping this post might bring ultramontane "out" to comment.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is an odious swine.

Matthews Plays Religion Card: Reminds Voters Brown Protestant, Coakley Catholic

By Mark Finkelstein

January 18, 2010 - 10:03 ET

"[H/t NewsBuster P.J. Gladnick.] How panicked is the MSM at the prospect of a Scott Brown victory tomorrow? So much so that Chris Matthews has stooped to seeking to use Scott Brown's Protestant religion against him in heavily Catholic Massachusetts . . .

The Hardball host made his despicable pitch during a Morning Joe appearance today.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: But this election's interesting.  I don't even know what religion--religion seems to play no role in this election, which is so unique in Massachusetts. Brown is a Protestant. Nobody's even mentioned it—I guess I just did.  And Coakley's I guess a Catholic, although I don't think that she sort of squares away that way in terms of her politics.  So I mean it's just so interesting: it's so post-tribal.

Matthews' smirking little laughter revealed he knew precisely what he was up to: attempting to stir up those "tribal" passions.  Can Matthews and the MSM sink much lower? Can you imagine the howls of liberal protest if a Republican pundit tried a similar stunt?

Shame on Chris Matthews.

Note: NB editor Ken Shepherd points out it's odd of Matthews to tout Coakley's Catholicism, given the way she looks down on devout Catholics.

Note Deux:  Another irony.  Remember then Sen. Obama's speech to the 2004 Dem convention? The one that put him on the political map, the one where he said: "even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America."

Now we have the squalid spectacle of one of PBO's most ardent supporters attempting to divide us in the most vile kind of way."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2010/01/18/matthews-plays-religion-card-reminds-voters-brown-protestant-coakl#ixzz0d6EgNQtF

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This is the same Chris Matthews who a number of years ago retorted to William Bennett,

 

"if you guys (Catholics) ran everything we'd be having a new version of the Inquisition, right?"

 

Who is Sonia Sotomayor?

Winston Churchill once described the Soviet Union as a "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." I thought of this quote as I began to preliminarily read about President Obama's pick to replace Justice Souter at the SCOTUS - namely Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Over at www.Beliefnet.com, Steven Waldman wrote this:

Get Ready For: "Is Sonia Sotomayor A Bad Catholic?"

Tuesday May 26, 2009

First published May 5, 2009
From a raw political point of view, it's hard to top Sonia Sotomayor to be Obama's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. She's Hispanic, a key group that Obama won over and must keep. She's a woman and, though liberal, was appointed by a Republican.

I haven't been able to determine whether she's Catholic, but she's Puerto Rican (most of whom are Catholic) and went to Catholic schools as a child.There already are five Catholics on the court but they're all conservative so they haven't been attacked for being bad Catholics (i.e. being pro-choice despite the church's teaching).

But pro-choice Catholics face a different obstacle course. As John Kerry and Kathleen Sebelius can attest, if you're a pro-choice Catholic, you will be challenged not only on whether you're a good public official but also whether you're a good Catholic.

If Sonia Sotomayor is Catholic, and pro-choice, we may get a wave of discussion about whether the Supreme Court justice should be denied communion.

 

At www.acandidworld.net you'll find this:

"Those scrutinizing potential nominee Sonia Sotomayor, though, will discover a dearth of real evidence on the subject (though that hasn’t stopped some of her detractors). Judge Sotomayor appears to have participated in only two cases seriously implicating the right to choose, with neither giving a strong sense of Judge Sotomayor’s position:

• Center for Reproductive Law & Policy v. Bush, 304 F.3d 183 (2d Cir. 2002). Plaintiff public interest organization challenged the “Mexico City Policy,” a.k.a. the “global gag rule” and its provisions stripping U.S. aid to foreign NGOs advocating for or performing abortions. In an opinion by Sotomayor, the court dismissed the case for lack of standing, rightly so.
• Port Washington Teachers’ Association v. Board of Education, 478 F.3d 494 (2d Cir. 2007). Plaintiff teachers challenged a school district policy, which suggested teachers should report student pregnancies to the student’s parents. In an opinion which Sotomayor joined, the court dismissed the case for lack of standing, noting that, because the policy was not mandatory, objecting teachers wouldn’t be fired for “violating it.” Again, the court is strictly correct. "

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While we don't yet know who Judge Sotomayor is (on the issue of abortion) WE DO KNOW WHO PRESIDENT OBAMA IS AND WHAT HIS POSITION IS AS REGARDS UNBORN LIFE!

There is no way on G*d's green earth that this President is going to nominate anybody to the Supreme Court who does not embrace, fully embrace, the cult of death on the issue of abortion.

If Judge Sotomayor's position(s) are unknown, this is a purposeful tactical choice on the part of the President to get her through the confirmation process.

G*d Save Our Republic!

Bella's Eduardo Verastegui On Abortion, Obama & Proposition 4

[Warning] The video immediately below is graphic (those below it are not)...

Barbara Kralis Asks An Excellent Question In Her New Article...

Click here to read Barbara Kralis' article: How many times do we have to say 'NO' to same-sex marriage?

Click here to read this recent Time Magazine story: The Gay Mafia That's Redefining Liberal Politics

Food For Thought...

See also: What Could Be Scarier Than Halloween? Two Orange County Pastors Donating To Obama

Silver Lining?

Interesting story from the bastion of orthodoxy, the National "Catholic" Reporter about a rebuke to recent statements by the national head of the Knights of Columbus, Carl Anderson (pic below).

Anderson's crime?

He takes Joe Biden to task for claiming to be a Catholic while supporting Abortion "rights."

The text of Anderson's letter can be found here:

http://www.kofc.org/un/cmf/resources/SK_20080919.pdf

The National "Catholic" Reporter story is, of course, not in defense of Anderson.

NCR gives a pulpit to a group called "Catholic Democrats" to attack Anderson. (That's their logo below with the "Lamb of G*d" symbol.)

The NCR story can be found here:

http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/1963

The website for the group "Catholic Democrats" here:

http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/index.php

I guess what I find most interesting are the comments found below the NCR article. Now perhaps these should be taken with a grain of salt as the SSPXers are not readers of NCR, for that matter neither are the FSSPers either, but that being said are from self reported "Catholics." Here are some actual comments:

"As a retired member of the Knights of Columbus, I want to say that I think that the bold political attacks on a Catholic Senator is irrational. Many will not support the authoritarian dictates of certain Bishops who continue to speak with a delusional sense of creeping infallibility. These same Bishops have equated the use of the Birth Control pill to abortion. They simply are incapable of adequately digesting scientific observation. They also forget that they are not even historically correct when they claim that body and soul come together at the time of conception."

"My husband is a KOC member & former Grand Knight. He has since moved away from his council mainly because of the single issue (abortion) being pounded again & again. To us, the "right to life" issue encompasses much more than the abortion situation. It includes every aspect of life - poverty, health care, peace, capital punishment, and so on. " (There's the ghost of Cardinal Bernardin again!)

"Carl Anderson does not speak for me who have been a member of the Knights ( at least I have an insurance policy with them) since 1963. the Knights, like some bishops, use the abortion issue to support right wing Republicans......Being anti-abortion is not being pro-life and Biden and Obama are pro life in their support of a range of issues."

Thought - Whatever the outcome of the election, could Obama's choice of Biden actually help the Church? I mean in the sense of forcing definition of a problem?

Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham (pic above), credited with saving the RAF in the dark days of WWII, often quipped that:

"Problem identification is 90% of the solution."

Your thoughts?

Jesus was a Community Organizer?

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) compares Obama to Jesus on the House floor.

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Here’s the quote:

“Jesus Was a Community Organizer,

                      Pontius Pilate a Governor”

Wow! What else can be said. I think Cohen is Jewish, but gads.

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Let's see.

Jesus Christ, son of G*d, Prince of Peace, Savior of the World..

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Barack Hussein Obama, born Kal-El on the planet Krypton, before being rocketed to Earth as an infant by his scientist father Jor-El, moments before Krypton's destruction. No, that's Superman.

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Oh wait, he's just the pro-infanticide junior Senator from Illinois!

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Said what is truth? or in Obamese -  "That's above my pay grade."

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Pontius Pilate, Prefect of the Roman Province of Judaea.

Loved to give speeches in front of Doric columns, oh wait that's Obama.

Pilate said moral questions were "above his pay grade," oh wait that's Obama too.

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Sarah Palin, pro-life Governor of Alaska, who actually acknowledges Jesus Christ as her Savior!

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To continue the biblical "association" game.

Herod the Great (73 BC – 4 BC) Roman client king of Judaea. Supposedly observant Jew who nonetheless believed in the slaughter of innocent children.

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Joseph Biden, Connecticut Senator. Supposedly observant Catholic who nonetheless believes in the slaughter of innocent children.

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?

Partisan Pastor?

Archbishop Charles Chaput has been very open about his commitment to the Democrat party, even going so far as to admit having voted for, and even having worked for pro-abortion candidates.

A recent article by Catholic author, Barbara Kralis, brought attention to the issue: Will Denver Catholic Archbishop finally enforce Canon 915?

Archbishop Charles Chaput's history has troubled many of the faithful, and some of them have attempted to encourage the archbishop to exercise his duty to teach, govern, and sanctify by denying pro-abortion politicians (regardless of political affiliation) access to the Holy Eucharist.

More after the jump...