Posted on 05/08/2009 6:12:07 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The Rev. Katherine Ragsdale will soon become the first female president of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Openly lesbian, the outgoing chief of a liberal think tank that monitored the Religious Right, and best known for her abortion rights advocacy through the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), Ragsdale maybe the perfect icon for untrammeled liberal Episcopalianism.
But a rather vigorous two-year-old abortion sermon by Ragsdale, assertive even by her standards, has overshadowed her recent appointment. "Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done!" she repeatedly exclaimed at a rally in defense of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, in 2007. Those "blessing" situations, according to Ragsdale, are when a woman is pregnant due to "violence," when the fetus has "anomalies," when the woman hasn't education or a "sustainable job," and even when a woman has a "loving, supportive, respectful relationship" with "every option open to her" but knows the child will compromise "one's education, life's work, or ability to put to use God's gifts." So basically, abortion, including even partial-birth abortion as Ragsdale admits, is a "blessing" just about any time it is desired.
In her Birmingham peroration, Ragsdale chastised medical personnel who declined to abort, comparing them to pacifists who join the military or animal rights activists who conduct medical research. They are in the wrong profession! She concluded her sermon: "I want to thank all of you who protect this blessing [of abortion] -- who do this work every day: the health care providers, doctors, nurses, technicians, receptionists, who put your lives on the line to care for others (you are heroes -- in my eyes, you are saints); the escorts and the activists; the lobbyists and the clinic defenders; all of you. You're engaged in holy work."
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
episcopalianism is toast already
every liberal bumper sticker made is on the cars of the lay workers parked in the local church lot
they really ought to just merge with the UUC
Maybe they can share space with the few remaining Shakers (yes, there are some!) who practiced universal celibacy.
This Reverend is in for a surprise on Judgement day.....
Wow, this is sad and outrageous, this demented woman is truly the epitome of evil. How far their church has fallen when they support a baby killer and lesbian, both abominations in the eyes of our heavenly Father.
That’s a nice church you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
This Reverend is in for a surprise on Judgement day.....
No surprise to her. I think she already knows where she’s going.
She’s not a woman. She’s a thing.
Children are “God’s Gifts”.
Ping?
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;...” This woman is going to be the head of their college of Divinity? Wow!
Oh... bama.
Her “prayer”:
Good morning, pro-choice America! I come to remind you that this [pointing to collar] too is the face of pro-choice America. The vast majority of religious Americans are behind you—as we have been for decades-since before Roe. We are pro-choice not in spite of our faith but because of it.
We’re pro-choice because we know that the scriptures—and any faith worthy of the name—do not give simple and easy answers to complex and difficult questions. They don’t promise to spare us from making tough decisions. They just promise that we won’t have to face those choices alone.
We’re pro-choice because we know that our faith cannot answer the question of when a fetus becomes a person. We also know that the whole question of fetal personhood is a disingenuous, and often malicious, attempt to distract us from the real issue—which is that the woman is a person. She is a person endowed by God, the U.S. Constitution, and common sense and decency with rights and responsibilities which she must exercise to the best of her ability, using her own best judgment.
And while our various religious traditions may teach various things about when, if, and how we should sacrifice ourselves for others, no one—not partner, nor priest, nor politician—no one gets to decide what is, or is not, an appropriate sacrifice for someone else to make.
We’re pro-choice because we have a vision.
We have plenty to march against—plenty to be outraged by:
...
So we’re here to tell you—every one of you —how much we respect and honor you for the work you do and the decisions you make.
And so we march with you—a massive, living prayer for that just and safe world that lives already in the heart of God... that shimmers on the horizon of our hope... and from which we will never turn back! God bless you all—today and always.
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I’m surprised she’s not receiving honors form Notre Dame.
Obama certainly thinks so, he named his kids Punishment 1 and 2.
Wonder if this means now he’s violated the separation between ‘church’ and state. He’s doing holy work. I would think he’d avoid such an obvious encroachment.
“Any faith “worthy” of the name do not give simple and easy answers to complex and difficult questions.”
It’s clear she has never cracked the Bible open and that it’s just been a mere ornament for the various tables and/or desks she’s had throughout her life.
I would not want to be her. That is really not going to be a fun judgment.
Thanks for the PING
This female has her mind sucked out...
Void of compassion...
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