Posted on 04/28/2009 11:50:36 AM PDT by wagglebee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The president of the national conference of Catholic bishops recently elaborated further on the meeting he had in March with President Barack Obama. Cardinal George told a recent gathering of Catholic priests that Obama says he is not pro-abortion and will eventually work to reduce abortions.
For most pro-life advocates, Obama's extensive pro-abortion record of executive orders and key political appointments proves otherwise.
According to a Catholic News Service report, Cardinal Francis George discussed the conversation he had with Obama at a March 18 meeting at the White House.
"I think on the life issue he's on the wrong side of history," the cardinal said, but he added that Obama wants to make pro-life advocates appear as if he is on their side.
"It's hard to disagree with him because he'll always tell you he agrees with you," he said, according to CNS. "Maybe that's political. I think he sincerely wants to agree with you. You have to say, again and again, 'No, Mr. President, we don't agree (on abortion).'"
The Catholic News Service indicates Cardinal George said he told Obama he is concerned with the president's decision to overturn the Mexico City Policy and opening the door to funding groups that promote and perform abortions in other nations.
"He said we weren't exporting abortion," the cardinal recounted. "I said, 'Yes we are.' He would say, 'I know I have to do certain things here. ... But be patient and you'll see the pattern will change.' I said, 'Mr. President, you've given us nothing but the wrong signals on this issue.' So, we'll see, but I'm not as hopeful now as I was when he was first elected."
"I think he has his political debts to pay, and so he's paying them," Cardinal George said of the impression he was left with after the Obama meeting.
Ultimately, the Catholic pro-life leader cast a pessimistic view of the situation under Obama and the long-term outlook.
"I think we're up against something a little bit like slavery," he said, adding that Obama and abortion advocates are unwilling to change the law to protect human life before birth.
"It's a society-dividing issue, and on this issue, we're with Abraham Lincoln and he's with Stephen Douglas, and he doesn't like to hear that, but that's where he is," George said, according to CNS.
"For 80 years we were a slave republic, and it took a terrible war to end that. And now for 40 years we're in an abortion regime, and I'm not sure how that's going to end," he added.
FYI
The bishops who have so far expressed disapproval of Notre Dame's invitation to Obama (in alphabetical order) are:
1. Bishop John D'Arcy - Fort Wayne-South Bend, IN
2. Bishop Samuel Aquila - Fargo, ND
3. Bishop Gregory Aymond - Austin, TX
4. Bishop Gerald Barbarito - Palm Beach, FL
5. Bishop Leonard Blair - Toledo, OH
6. Archbishop Daniel Buechlein - Indianapolis, IN
7. Bishop Robert Baker - Birmingham, AL
8. Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz - Lincoln, NE
9. Archbishop Eusebius Beltran - Oklahoma City, OK
10. Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú - San Antonio, TX
11. Bishop Paul Coakley - Salina, KS
12. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo - Houston, TX
13. Archbishop Timothy Dolan - New York, NY
14. Bishop Thomas Doran - Rockford, IL
15. Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty - Scranton, PA
16. Bishop Robert Finn - Kansas City-St. Joseph, MO
17. Bishop Victor Galeone - St. Augustine, FL
18. Cardinal Francis George - Chicago, IL; President, USCCB
19. Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger - Evansville, IN
20. Archbishop José Gomez - San Antonio, TX
21. Bishop William Higi - Lafayette, IN
22. Archbishop Alfred Hughs - New Orleans, LA
23. Bishop Joseph Latino - Jackson, MS
24. Bishop John LeVoir - New Ulm, MN
25. Bishop Jerome Listecki - La Crosse, WI
26. Bishop William E. Lori - Bridgeport, CT
27. Bishop Paul Loverde - Arlington, VA
28. Bishop George Lucas - Springfield, IL
29. Bishop Robert Lynch - St. Petersburg, FL
30. Bishop Joseph Martino - Scranton, PA
31. Bishop Charles Morlino - Madison, WI
32. Bishop George Murry - Youngstown, OH
33. Archbishop John J. Myers - Newark, NJ
34. Archbishop Joseph Naumann - Kansas City, KS
35. Bishop R. Walker Nickless - Sioux City, IA
36. Archbishop John C. Nienstedt - St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN
37. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien - Baltimore, MD
38. Bishop Thomas Olmsted - Phoenix, AZ
39. Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk - Cincinnati, OH
40. Bishop Kevin Rhoades - Harrisburg, PA
41. Bishop Alexander Sample - Marquette, MI
42. Bishop Edward J. Slattery - Tulsa, OK
43. Bishop Richard Stika - Knoxville, TN
44. Bishop Anthony Taylor - Little Rock, AR
45. Bishop Robert Vasa - Baker, OR
46. Bishop Thomas Wenski - Orlando, FL
47. Archbishop Donald Wuerl - Washington, D.C.
48. Bishop David Zubick - Pittsburgh, PA
For a list of contact information regarding the Notre Dame scandal, go to: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032706.html
Thanks for that link, Jim.
Okay, I'm confused.
Do you mean you considered BJ to be the second worst president and, on the level of personal integrity, the worst person to be president?
I think Franklin Roosevelt did more damage to these United States, as President, than Slick Willy. Hence, worst President. The man was an outright fascist, and his policies both prolonged (if not 'created') the Great Depression and sold out half the world to Stalinism. BJ was a piker by comparison.
OTOH, in the field of personal integrity not even JFK plumbed the depths in which DIRTXPOTUS routinely dwelt.
Now we have Barak Hussein Soetoro Odinga Whatever 0bama, the Kenyan Islamocommunist. He has both of them beat.
I swear Obama is the love child of Margaret Sanger and Karl Marx
I couldn’t agree more.
Love child of Satan. He’s evil.
The muzzie slime is not pro-abortion?
What about his voting record?
Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever.
He is so pro-abortion he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede — as he explained in a cold-blooded speech on the Illinois Senate floor — that these babies, fully outside their mothers’ wombs, with their hearts beating and lungs heaving, were in fact “persons.”
“Persons,” of course, are guaranteed equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment.
In 2004, U.S. Senate-candidate Obama mischaracterized his opposition to this legislation. Now, as a presidential frontrunner, he should be held accountable for what he actually said and did about the Born Alive Infants Bill.
State and federal versions of this bill became an issue earlier this decade because of “induced labor abortion.” This is usually performed on a baby with Down’s Syndrome or another problem discovered on the cusp of viability. A doctor medicates the mother to cause premature labor. Babies surviving labor are left untreated to die.
Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., testified in the U.S. Congress in 2000 and 2001 about how “induced labor abortions” were handled at her hospital.
“One night,” she said in testimony entered into the Congressional Record, “a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have the time to hold him. I couldn’t bear the thought of this suffering child lying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived.”
In 2001, Illinois state Sen. Patrick O’Malley introduced three bills to help such babies. One required a second physician to be present at the abortion to determine if a surviving baby was viable. Another gave the parents or a public guardian the right to sue to protect the baby’s rights. A third, almost identical to the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act President Bush signed in 2002, simply said a “homo sapiens” wholly emerged from his mother with a “beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles” should be treated as a “’person,’ ‘human being,’ ‘child’ and ‘individual.’”
Stanek testified about these bills in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, where Obama served. She told me this week he was “unfazed” by her story of holding the baby who survived an induced labor abortion.
On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted “present” on each, effectively the same as a “no.”
“Number one,” said Obama, explaining his reluctance to protect born infants, “whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a 9-month old — child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute.”
That June, the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (although it failed to become law that year). Pro-abortion Democrats supported it because this language was added: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this section.”
Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer explained that with this language the “amendment certainly does not attack Roe v. Wade.”
On July 18, 2002, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid called for the bill to be approved by unanimous consent. It was.
That same year, the Illinois version of the bill came up again. Obama voted “no.”
In 2003, Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services committee. The Born Alive Infant bill, now sponsored by Sen. Richard Winkel, was referred to this committee. Winkel also sponsored an amendment to make the Illinois bill identical to the federal law, adding — word for word — the language Barbara Boxer said protected Roe v. Wade. Obama still held the bill hostage in his committee, never calling a vote so it could be sent to the full senate.
A year later, when Republican U.S. senate candidate Alan Keyes challenged Obama in a debate for his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Bill, Obama said: “At the federal level there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe v. Wade. I would have voted for that bill.”
In fact, Obama had personally killed exactly that bill.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24354
This is one of the darkest statements ever made by a prince of the Church. It's implications are dire!
I must confess I did not read the article for this very ambiguous title. As dumb as my failing is, I am thankful the Cardinal was not duped by this affirmative action blood drenched liar-in-chief.
I have to admit that in the past, I too have posted to the headline, while only scanning the article. :-P
And it is 100% accurate.
Cardinal George, please step away from the sacramental wine and stop trying to make a concordat with evil. Obamam believe in unrestricted and publically-funded abortion as an absolute right to the degree taht he opposes the concience of physicians. He would force Catholic Hospitals to become houses of feticide.
Read the article and not just the title, he compares abortion to slavery, implies that war may be necessary to end it and basically calls Zero a liar.
Sorry, my bad. I’m in a foul mood.
No problem.
A character in the Bible is described that way: The Father of Lies.
The exact point the Bishop made. But I would tend to disagree with the Bishop on a minor point of 'nit picking' historical accuracy.
Douglas was politically neutral on slavery. His political position was that he didn't care one way or another about slavery -- i.e. his Popular Sovereignty doctrine as expressed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Obama, via his statements ("punish my children with a baby") and his unquestioning support of Roe v. Wade, is obviously a strong proponent of a single national law that allows abortion anywhere, at any time, for any reason and with no restrictions and no respect for popular sovereignty for states to choose their laws as they see fit.
In that sense, I'd say that Obama is closer to Jefferson Davis who proclaimed slavery as a positive good that should not be restricted anywhere for any reason.
Roe v Wade, like the Dred Scott, decision, is the opposite of Douglass' 'Popular Sovereignty' policy.
Lincoln vs. Jefferson Davis would be a far better analogy, but that's just my nitpicking and I can forgive the Bishop for not being a history buff. The point he was making in equating abortion on demand with slavery is totally valid.
One way or another, I fear we will eventually have hell to pay for this policy, just as we had for the sin of slavery.
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