Posted on 05/15/2008 1:38:48 PM PDT by Diago
Having been drawn to Senator Obama’s remarkable “love thy neighbor” style of campaigning, his express aim to transcend partisan divide, and specifically, his appreciation for faith ("secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square"), I did not expect to be clobbered by co-religionists.(emphasis and editorial commentary added)
On the blogs, I have been declared “self-excommunicated,” and recently at a Mass before a dinner speech to Catholic business leaders, a very angry college chaplain excoriated my Obama-heresy from the pulpit at length and then denied my receipt of communion. [ED.: Daaaaaaaamn. That's one rebuke that must've stung.]
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It won’t help now that the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) has endorsed Obama over Clinton. This is an endorsement that is deeply troubling unless the good Senator Obama intends to match it with the sobering acknowledgment that abortion is less “right,” than avoidable tragedy. [ED.: WTF? Are you seriously going to pretend to be "troubled" or surprised in any way that Obama was endorsed by this group after he promised the abortion lobby that he "will not yield" on their pro-abort agenda? Kmiec's dissembling attempts to make Obama come off as representative of some sort of pro-life middle ground become more and more insulting to the intelligence and common sense of pro-lifers with each new defense he writes.]
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Catholic instruction provides that “a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.”
That obviously would preclude a Catholic voter from supporting a referendum providing public funding for abortion, but what about a candidate like Obama who is not pro-abortion, but of the view that the civil law best leaves this question to the mother in consultation with their own clergyman and doctor? [ED.: And there we have it, folks. He finally comes out and adopts the Gerald Campbell position that "pro-choice" really isn't "pro-abortion" - which is at odds with the view taken by the Bishops*, by the way - and officially baptizes "pro-choice" as a legitimate postition for a Catholic to hold and vote in favor of. THAT'S why the priest denied you Communion, Professor Kmiec. You have become an apologist for the "pro-choice" position. "Consultation with their own clergyman and doctor" my ass! As if that somehow gives someone license to kill people. I suspect that next you'll be adopting the "safe, legal, and rare" rhetoric.]
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But there's a deeper question: Are Catholics -- indeed people of all faiths and no faith -- who address the wrenching economic or social circumstances or misinformation that pressure a mother into believing she has no alternative but to take the life of her unborn, really pro-abortion? [ED.: Excuse me while I choke on my own vomit!]
... Kmiec’s solution to the NARAL dilemma is to have Obama propose a “fulsome initiative” to promote adoption; evidently that would restore his anti-abortion bona fides to a level worthy of a pro-life voter’s vote. If you believe abortion is murder, though, why would some sort of hortatory measure like that suffice? It’d be like if Obama proposed letting family members euthanize Alzheimer’s patients so long as there was some “fulsome initiative” to inform them of the virtues of letting them live. Some behavior is immoral to a degree that we merely cajole, other behavior is immoral to a degree that we prohibit. How did abortion end up in the former category for anti-abortion advocate Doug Kmiec? And what on earth does it mean to say that Obama “is not pro-abortion,” as though that’s some mark of distinction? There isn’t a single mainstream pro-choice politician I can think of, left or right, who doesn’t load up his/her abortion rhetoric with lip service about what a tragedy it is, how it should be safe, legal, and hopefully rare, etc. Anything less would be ghoulish. As such, Obama’s hesitancy isn’t evidence of virtue, it’s evidence of his being barely sentient enough to know that he’d better be sober in how he talks about this lest those independent voters he needs head for the hills...(emphasis added)
The other mildly disturbing thing about all this is that Kmiec seems to be dealing almost entirely with an Obama that exists entirely within his own head. A couple weeks ago he was excited about Obama supporting the 95-10 initiative -- except that Obama does not support that.
Now he says Obama should prove he's not really pro-abortion by advocating adoption -- but Obama doesn't show any signs of being disturbed by NARAL's endorsement.
This seems to be another case of a smart (perhaps too smart) person treating Obama as the tabula rasa on which to write out all his own concerns, without ever actually consulting the real Obama.
Labels: Blessed Sacrament, Culture of Death, Dissident Catholics, Moloch Obamessiah, Pro-Life, Voting Your Values
I note that his son Keenan, a former clerk for Justice Roberts, is also an Obama supporter and donated $250 to the campaign.
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?zip=20003&last=Kmiec&first=Keenan
“Keenan Kmiec graduated from Boalt Hall Law School and was selected as a 2006-2007 law clerk to U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, and practices with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Sidley Austin.”
NARAL endorsed Obama over Hillary because
Hillary only supports abortion on demand up to and including the day the baby would be born naturally,
and Obama supports “abortion” even after the baby is out of the woman’s body and alive.
On the blogs, I have been declared “self-excommunicated,” and recently at a Mass before a dinner speech to Catholic business leaders, a very angry college chaplain excoriated my Obama-heresy from the pulpit at length and then denied my receipt of communion.
The current Roman Catholic Pope laments the loss of Christian faith in the main territory where it arose - Europe.
But for decades the heirarchy and leading thinkers from that Church have made common cause with Marxists of all stripes in Europe, on issues of so-called “social justice” and “economic justice”. It has been a long political alliance in which the Marxists have enjoyed all the benefits, with the destruction of a majority of a core of faithful Christians, and their values, as the result.
Now that Church is trying to make that same poltical alliance, on the same issues, here in this country.
It’s time American Catholics rejected the Marxism and Socialism mimiked by the “social justice” intellectual, moral relativism coming from Europe, even when it comes from their own religious leaders.
I tried to read Kmiec’s piece last night but my computer would not cooperate. I kept getting a message that Explorer had encountered an error and needed to close. This happened five times. No other site was a problem. I concluded that the software had an opinion of Kmiec and gave up.
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