Pope Benedict strongly rebukes Pelosi over abortion

My 2 cents on this:

Catholics for Choice are delusional. No Catholic can remain in a state of grace and knowingly vote for someone who is pro-death if there is someone they could have voted for who is NOT pro-death. Catholics for Choice are not in a state of grace because they DO know and choose the sin anyway. My prayer is that good people of both Catholic Christians and protestant denominations will not be suckered in to believing Catholics for Choice...which is, by the way, a contradition in terms.

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Pope Benedict strongly rebukes Pelosi over abortion

Pope Benedict / Speaker Nancy Pelosi


Vatican City, Feb 18, 2009 / 10:18 am (CNA).- House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s photo-op with Pope Benedict XVI turned sour when the Pontiff used the 15-minute meeting to reaffirm the teachings of the Catholic Church on the right to life and the duty to protect the unborn.

No photo of Nancy Pelosi and the Pope will be forthcoming, since the meeting was closed to reporters and photographers. The two met in a small room in the Vatican just after the Pope's weekly public audience.

Immediately after the meeting, the Holy See’s press office released a statement saying, "following the general audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage."

"His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in co-operation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

A significant number of Catholic and pro-life organizations expressed concern over how Pelosi would use the meeting with Pope Benedict to further her position that it is possible to be Catholic and pro-abortion.

Last August, Pelosi was rebuked by several U.S. bishops for attempting to theologically justify her position during an interview with "Meet the Press."

On Tuesday, Jon O’Brien, president of "Catholics for Choice," a small, well-funded organization that provides theological arguments to pro-abortion Catholic politicians, told The Hill that today’s visit between the Speaker and Pope Benedict would be an opportunity to highlight that one can be pro-choice and Catholic, and that there are much bigger issues out there to discuss, such as the fate of the poor in the global economic downturn.

"That would be a real conversation about choice, instead of this micro-obsession with abortion," O’Brien said.

Nevertheless, according to the Holy See's statement, the Pope spent the whole 15 minute conversation talking with Pelosi about the right to life and the need to defend the unborn.

A spokesman for Pelosi, who is now headed to Southern Italy as part of her Italian tour, said she would issue a statement later in the day regarding her meeting with the Pope.

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Catholics Abandon the Unborn in the 44th Presidency

Catholics for Obama...this is for you.

William Blazek
Catholics Abandon the Unborn in the 44th Presidency

A simple web search for the order of presidential succession in the newly-minted Obama administration makes clear what a profound debacle the '08 election was for the pro-life movement in the United States. The country's top leadership now looks like a Who's Who of the National Abortion Rights Action League's "100% pro-choice" club. Largely ignored in the last election, abortion remains a massively important political issue. Catholics who did so should be ashamed of themselves for voting with disregard for a ticket and party that is inimical to a central moral tenet of their Church's teaching. Abortion kills.

This nation daily tolerates the willfully procured death of over 3,200 innocent and defenseless human beings, and that slaughter is an abomination far beyond other considerations that entered into electoral decisions last year. To maintain any sort of credible witness to the value of human life, Catholic leaders and faithful must choose to directly and publicly reengage the pro-life movement and to put John Paul II's Gospel of Life at the very top of their social and political agendas in the battles that lie ahead.

The new Cabinet, White House staff and top Congressional leadership, several so-called "pro-choice Catholics" among them, look to be clearly unfriendly to the protection of embryonic life. From House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, voting records indicate a steeply pro-choice political trajectory for the coming years. (Vice President Biden actually received only a "mixed" pro-choice rating, based in part on his support of the partial birth abortion ban.) Worse than having these elected and appointed officials around for the coming term, can it be imagined that President Obama will not nominate as lifelong Supreme Court members jurists as radical on life issues as his cabinet and staff? The new administration is headed by a man who said that one of his first actions as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, as extreme a piece of pro-choice legislation as can be imagined. A clear and chilling harbinger of things to come, his first executive orders are likely to be targeted at overturning Bush era restrictions on using federal funds for abortions overseas and for research that destroys embryos.

The Respect Life community failed to make abortion a meaningful issue in the past election and the current situation is the sour fruit of that negligence. Catholics especially abandoned the unborn at the polls. At least 54% of those identifying themselves as Catholic supported President Obama, while "Church-going Catholics" voted 50% for McCain to Obama's 49%. Either number demonstrates an inability in the ecclesial hierarchy and the lay leadership in the Catholic Pro-life movement to make a convincing argument about the nature of the abortion act and the issue's relative importance versus other weighty but lesser political questions such as the election of African-American leaders, the economy, or the war on terror.

Abortion kills and its deadly impact is orders of magnitude beyond the violence of the Iraq war or any indignities visited upon detainees held at Guantanamo. However many millions of visitors may have journeyed to the Capital for this week's inaugural, it is certain that several million Americans never had the slightest chance of making it to the festivities. At least 45 million to be more accurate: all those aborted since the handing down of Roe v Wade. While the election of President Obama means good things for progress in racial integration in this nation, it cannot be ignored that abortion continues to heavily disproportionately target African-Americans, 13 million since 1973.

While claims that embryos and fetuses are members of the human family are often dismissed as based on faith alone or merely a matter of personal opinion, from a scientific standpoint this is entirely untrue. At the moment of conception, when egg meets sperm, either in the petri dish or the fallopian tube, the complete genetic blueprint of a new unique human individual comes together. This is scientific fact. It was at the moment of conception that each and every reader of this article began to journey through the developmental stages of life. Those destroyed in an abortion are genetically human except under the most bizarre circumstances. They are also certainly alive, consuming nutrients, excreting waste products of metabolism, growing, possessing the potential to reproduce, and responding to external stimuli such as local pH, availability of oxygen, and the presence of hormones in the fetal and maternal circulation. Abortion kills a human being in the earliest days, weeks or months of its development, period.

Today, as the bunting comes down and crews disassemble the reviewing stands on Pennsylvania Avenue, the annual March for Life will stream quietly by the Capitol dome and Congress will prepare to debate the Freedom of Choice Act as a first order of business. This government is poised to push the pro-life movement in America into oblivion. Whether they decide to do so in the pulpit, the media, or in their extensive school networks, bishops, clergy and lay leaders in the Catholic Church will have to motivate their flocks to action if they want to see any movement out of the moral quagmire this country finds itself in on abortion.

Dr. William Blazek, a Jesuit scholastic and physician, is a board certified specialist in Internal Medicine and a Research Scholar in the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University School of Medicine. He teaches ethics and clinical skills as an Adjunct Assistant Professor while preparing for ordination to priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

Posted by William Blazek on January 21, 2009 10:57 AM

Bishops Pledge To Help U.S. Leaders Advance Common Good and Defend Life

Bishops pledge to help U.S. leaders advance common good and defend life

Cardinal Francis George / U.S. Congress

Washington DC, Jan 15, 2009 / 04:45 am (CNA).- Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, writing on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama, Vice-president-elect Joseph Biden and Congress to assure them of the bishops’ prayers and their commitment “to make this period of national change a time to advance the common good and defend the life and dignity of all.”

The January 13 letter from Cardinal George, who is the President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), offered an outline of “an agenda for dialogue and action.”

The cardinal began by explaining that bishops approach public policy “as pastors and teachers.” Their moral principles have guided them in reaching out to the needy, offering health care and housing, and educating children.

“We lead the largest community of faith in the United States, one that serves every part of our nation and is present in almost every place on earth,” the letter continued. “From our experience and our tradition, we offer a distinctive, constructive and principled contribution to the national dialogue on how to act together on issues of economic turmoil and suffering, war and violence, moral decency and human dignity.”

The letter’s policy content began with a pledge to help the new presidential administration and Congress “support strong, prudent and effective measures” to address the “terrible impacts” of the economic crisis. The bishops advocated that poor families and vulnerable workers be given priority.

The bishops, who said that access to decent health care is a basic human right, urged “comprehensive action” to ensure “truly universal health care coverage which protects all human life including pre-natal life.” “Any such legislation ought to respect freedom to choose,” they said, by offering options and ensuring respect for the moral and religious convictions of patients and health care providers.

They also gave their “enthusiastic backing” to efforts to relieve HIV/AIDS and other diseases in ways that are “both effectively and morally appropriate.”

The bishops pledged cooperation in seeking a “responsible transition” in an Iraq “free of religious persecution.” They also urged leadership in bringing peace to the Holy Land and in supporting “increased and reformed” foreign aid to overcome poverty, hunger and disease.

Advocating “comprehensive reform” to American immigration policy, the bishops said such a reform must be based upon “respect for and implementation of the law” while dealing with “the economic and human realities of millions of immigrants.”

The defense of marriage as being between a man and a woman was also raised by Cardinal George, who wrote, “We stand firm in our support for marriage which is a faithful, exclusive, lifelong union of a man and a woman and must remain such in law.” “Marriage makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to the common good of society, especially through the procreation and education of children. No other kinds of personal relationships can be justly made equivalent to the commitment of a man and a woman in marriage.”

The bishops added their support to initiatives which provide resources for parents to choose the best education for their children’s needs.

They also welcomed “continuing commitments” to faith-based programs in anti-poverty work and other efforts in ways that do not encourage the government to abandon its responsibilities and don’t require religious groups to abandon their identity and mission.

“Most fundamentally,” the Catholic bishops wrote, “we will work to protect the lives of the most vulnerable and voiceless members of the human family, especially unborn children and those who are disabled or terminally ill.”

“We will consistently defend the fundamental right to life from conception to natural death,” the bishops’ letter closed.

The bishops endorsed finding common ground to reduce the number of abortions in “morally sound ways.” They also pledged opposition to initiatives to expand abortion. The bishops mentioned conscience protection for health care workers and prohibitions on taxpayer funding of abortion as particular areas of concern.