Posted on 03/22/2013 6:15:19 AM PDT by Morgana
The National Catholic Reporter has once again proved that its nickname, the National Catholic “Fishwrap,” is well deserved.
On Wednesday, NCR printed a column in which columnist Bill Tammeus (who, oddly enough, isn’t Catholic, but a Presbyterian elder) referred to the unborn child as a “bundle of cells” and questioned why the Roman Catholic Church has exerted so much energy trying to stop abortion, as opposed to the death penalty.
After all, says, Bill Tammeus, “in the matter of abortion, we have a bundle of cells that one day may be born.”
On the other hand, in the case of the death penalty, “we have human beings who have been around for years, having long proven viable outside the womb -- people who may be capable of repentance and who, thus, may be rescued from misspent lives.”
That anybody in the 21st century is still laboring under the belief that the unborn child is merely a “bundle of cells” beggars belief. It brings to mind what a young man viewing photos of aborted babies on a university campus recently said in response to his friend who told him that “it’s just a clump of cells.”
“That’s a pretty organized clump of cells!” the man responded.
Indeed. If the unborn baby is a “bundle of cells,” then we’re all just “bundles of cells.”
But putting aside questions of elementary-school-level biology, let’s consider some elementary-school-level mathematics.
Tell me, if you can, which number is higher: 50 million, or 1,300?
Fifty million is, of course (give or take several million), the number of human beings that have been killed by abortion in the U.S. since abortion was legalized in the United States in 1973.
1,324, on the other hand, is the number of executions that have taken place in the United States since 1976.
Or, in other words, there have been about 1.25 million abortions per year in the United States, as opposed to about 36 executions per year. So far this year, there have been a grand total of four executions in the United States, while there have been nearly 300,000 abortions.
Or, to look at it yet another way, the abortion rate is 37,000 times higher than the execution rate.
In the United States, with its advanced forensics and generally enlightened court system, it’s safe to say that the vast majority of those who have been executed were guilty of heinous crimes. On the other hand, every single unborn child killed through abortion was completely innocent.
Of course, there have been instances in which innocent people have been executed, and even one such death of one innocent person is clearly one too many. In the age of nearly escape-proof maximum security prisons, there may well be a good argument to be made that the risk of executing any innocent person is enough to favor abolishing the death penalty altogether. The Catholic Church appears to agree with that.
But when millions of innocent children are dying every year under the hand of the abortionist’s knife, and when millions of mothers are experiencing depression, alcoholism, and infertility after abortions, how can anyone, let alone a columnist in a supposedly “Catholic” newspaper, argue that the Catholic Church’s resources have been misplaced?
If anything, what we need is more resources, more energy, and more time poured into fighting this great scourge upon our society.
The real question is: why did a putatively "Catholic" newspaper feel the need to enlist the help of a non-Catholic to bash the Catholic Church's efforts on one of the most pressing issues of our day? This is just more proof that Bishop Finn was more than justified when he recently made clear that NCR, whose offices are located in his diocese, should not be using the word “Catholic” in their name. Unfortunately, so far NCR shows no signs of complying
It must have been preordained.
That’s exactly what the raging man-hating feminazis call us after conception. That paper doesn’t deserve the name Catholic.
Agree.
The bundle of cells hasn’t been convicted of murdering or doing something equally horrific to another human being(s).
From “bundle of cells” to “bundle of nuts in DC”. That’s got to be one of the greatest segues in the history of FR.
(With the exception of the LDS and the Jehovah's Wtnesses, IIRC, because they do not believe in the Trinity and thus their Baptism cannot, by definition, be intended to be baptism in the name of the Trinity.)
In fact, any person, even a non-baptized person, can administer baptism in the case of an emergency, e.g. a military medic baptizing his mortally wounded fellow soldier, at the dying man's request.
It's in the Catechism. They could have looked it up.
That doesn't seem to bother them. Too bad they can't be hauled into court and sued. Unfortunately, there's no copyright or TradeMark protection for the word "Catholic."
It's like "Amish Cheese" or "Quaker Oats."
On the other hand, every single unborn child killed through abortion was completely innocent.
Not "completely." The correct substitute would be "as yet."
All, by Adam's error, are infected with the absolutely predetermined nature of erring from God's commands, placing them under condemnation to die; that is, they all, save one, have an original sinful nature, inescapably entwined in their DNA/mitochondria.
Consider this:
That statistically, among fifty million aborted unborn children, surely more than 1,324 more murderers (worthy as adults of execution before their time) will not have seen daylight.
But we do not know which of those murderous adults abortion will have anticipated.
Regardless, all (including the one perfect individual) will be born with the sentence of death certainly in the offing.
Let us think on that for a while.
And why are "Catholics" accrediting him as a Presbyterian? To inherently besmirch Protestantism with his claim to be of them? With this viewpoint, he is an unbeliever of the first water.
This is a humanistically-derived, errant opinion, not worthy of a clear literal/grammatical/historical/cultural hermeneutic (interpretation) of the command of Christ as found at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, nor as it is applied in the greater context.
The correct interpretation is that this baptism is a rite of initiation (similar to the swearing-in ceremony of induction into our armed forces) into the life-long occupation of disciple-making, by conferring delegated authority under Christ's command.
The water-baptism is not an agency of conferring forgiveness of sins, as many think, the dispensation of which they like to put themselves in command (simony). No, it is a rite performed on the basis of sin and sins already convicted of by the Holy Ghost, confessed and abandoned by the believer, abandoned and forgotten by The Just And Righteous Father--a prerequisite for having been spiritually cleansed by the Blood of The Christ, justified by His resurrection, and reconciled by Him as our Eternal Priest--in preparation for the believer to be accepted into the disciplizing paradigm by water-baptism immersion and concurrent proclamation of The Faith.
This water-baptism is meant solely for the commissioning of regenerated believer-disciples who have already shown their clear devotion to following Christ through being discipled into a saving knowledge of and passion for The Faith, thus committing themselves into being progressively led into spiritual maturity. This baptism (not one of the seven other baptisms mentioned in the Bible) is to be entered by immersion. Figuratively, it is a baptism of total submersion into a death-producing medium, signifying a death to self, to Sin as a Master, and to the world; from which one arises into a life-giving medium as eternally and fully committed to The Christ Master as a bond-slave and disciple-maker.
The meaning and intention of this baptism as an induction/ordination rite was explicitly understood by the disciple/apostles. Any other proposed use would be a misuse and a demeaning of its purpose.
This baptism clearly is to be administered only by an individual who has agreed with the doctrine, submitted himself to this ordination, and who has begun the preparation for disciple-making--one who has demonstrated the intent to bear fruit. That is, though the fruit (not "fruits") of the Spirit are seen in an individual (figuratively) as the observed gradual development of the character of Christ; in contrast, the fruit of the disciple--another and different fruit--is more disciples (learners)(literally) which he has been empowered to recruit and instruct.
Thus the baptism spoken of is not a transaction to be entered into by a new convert, nor by an unregenerated believer, nor by an individual self-proclaiming conversion, and most certainly not by a newborn infant child nor rank unbeliever. The purpose is not salvatory for them.
The agreement described in the article about the nature, purpose, or performance of water-baptism among various extra-Biblical denominations is the gross error of lack of understanding of the mind of Christ by uncommissioned groups falsely proclaiming themselves as appointed purveyors of The Faith, and deceiving seekers of the rudiments of The Faith thereby.
That is a Scriptural view in which I have been instructed, and mine also, of an answer to the incorrect description you have given of carrying out this glorious commandment.
Let Scripture alone be the divider of truth from error.
Look up all the references.
You could also ask why a “Catholic” newspaper printed the article.
That statistically, among fifty million aborted unborn children, surely more than 1,324 more murderers (worthy as adults of execution before their time) will not have seen daylight.
But we do not know which of those murderous adults abortion will have anticipated.
Regardless, all (including the one perfect individual) will be born with the sentence of death certainly in the offing.
Let us think on that for a while.
Think about it for a while why?
It's irrelevant if abortion killed someone who may have been deserving of the death penalty at some point in their lives, and it's irrelevant that everyone is going to die some day anyway.
Abortion is murder and ought not to be practiced for that reason.
Of course it is, and worse--it is self-inflicted genocide. That's the point I was trying to make. But the statistics are not irrelevant. For sure you may know that all fifty million (plus/minus) will hold their parents and the abortionists accountable under the Holy Judgments.
And also, for sure, they will have already preceded you and I into The Heaven, not having accomplished sinful acts; and thus whereas they have committed no offenses of the law, no sin nor guilt is imputed, by the grace and mercy of the just, loving, and pitying Father God. (Please set the artifices of a "limbo" and/or "purgatory" aside, as they have no sound basis.)
No doubt these little ones will say, as Joseph did, "...As for you, ye thought evil against me; but The God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive" (Genesis 50:20).
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