Posted on 11/05/2008 10:42:55 AM PST by Alex Murphy
November 5, 2008 (insidecatholic.com) - When the U.S. bishops hold their annual meeting in Baltimore next week, one item on the agenda will be approval of the new Order for the Blessing of the Child in the Womb.
The blessing, according to the USCCB, "was prepared to support parents awaiting the birth of their child, to encourage in the parish prayers for and recognition of the gift of the child in the womb, and to foster respect for human life within society." If approved by the bishops, the Blessing of the Child in the Womb will be incorporated into the Book of Blessings.
It couldn't come at a better time.
The election of Barack Obama sets the stage for a series of potential executive and congressional acts that could remove all the limits set on abortion since the Roe v. Wade decision. The most pernicious of these is the "Freedom of Choice Act," which Obama has promised will be the first bill he signs into law as president.
It is estimated that FOCA alone would result in 125,000 more abortions a year in the United States. That figure does not take into account other measures, such as Obama's pledge not to renew the Mexico City Policy and to repeal the Hyde amendment. As a result of Obama's victory, there will not only be hundreds of thousands of additional abortions, but American taxpayers will be paying for them.
Polls of Catholic voters prior to the election suggested that Obama might win a majority of self-identified Catholic voters. A more significant measure of Obama's Catholic support will be the percentage of regular Mass-attending Catholics who voted for him.
But regardless of the final statistics, it is clear that the Obama-Biden ticket received substantial help from Catholics working for parishes and chanceries, as well as a number of high-profile Catholic politicians and jurists. They successfully promoted the flaws of "Faithful Citizenship" to Catholics nationwide, neutralizing any advantage the Church's pro-life and pro-marriage teachings might offer to McCain-Palin.
"Faithful Citizenship" stated that, under certain circumstances, a Catholic could in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights for "other grave reasons" as long as they do not intend to support that position (34-35).
It's a strange argument that allows Catholics to send a politician with an undeniably extreme abortion record into the Oval Office and yet somehow bear no responsibility for what happens to unborn children as a result. One can only wonder what "grave reasons" the bishops could have had in mind that would outweigh the 4,000 unborn children who are aborted each day.
Many bishops -- including Bishops Vann, Farrell, Vasa, Martino, and Chaput -- stepped forward in the last months to correct misinterpretations of "Faithful Citizenship," but it was too late. History will show that Catholics helped to vote into office a president whose record contradicts our most fundamental moral belief -- the sanctity of human life.
When the bishops meet next week and approve the Blessing of the Child in the Womb, just as important will be the steps they take in convincing the president-elect to change his mind about the Freedom of Choice Act.
Change, after all, can be a good thing.
Non-Christians don't believe in sin. How can they without God? God has etched sin on everyone's heart but the more they sin, the deeper into depravity they sink.
Christians OTOH are meant to be the salt of the world. It is our responsibility to convict the world of sin, righteousness and of judgment. God will bless us in our calling when we are faithful. When we are unfaithful, God withholds His blessings.
The true barometer of how obedient we are to our calling is how we are influencing society around us. If society is sinking into depravity, it is simply because we as Christians are unfaithful to our calling.
That’s the problem of all Christianity these days. You can’t tell us apart from the world and its culture. Shame on all of us.
If you tithe as God commands, I believe he will sustain you through financial difficulties.
All of our churches, Catholic and protestant, need to be revived from within. The shaking of God will begin in the church and we’d better be ready for it.
They’ve also known hardship and persecution. THAT is what makes the church strong.
IMHO, we as the church and body of Christ have failed miserably to act any differently than the world. We need to stand up and be counted.
Amen!Amen!
Many of the Catholics that I know and associate with in Iowa and Illinois voted for Obama in spite of the abortion issue. To a large extent, the issue was covered up or diverted to social justice or similar mealy mouthed diversions.
To the credit of the younger Catholics, the vast majority of the Obama support was from the Baby Boomers, late of Vatican II, enamoured of guitar Masses, Wiccan nuns and revolution theology. These aging leftovers of the 60s peace love dope crowd are slowly moving on and slowly being replaced by more conservative and traditional Catholics (le Catholic traditionale c’est moi) but the stink of the ordure does not dissipate quickly enough for us who are eager for a return to traditional Catholic values and a final reunion with our Orthodox brothers.
Pope BXVI is accelerating the return to orthodoxy; that has to be achieved before the reunion can occur.
Amen. At times I can’t tell the difference between the church and the American Red Cross.
I noticed that the county in Indiana where South Bend is went for Obama. I don't know if there is a large population of non-Catholics there, but I would think that the Notre Dame community would have enough influence to cause it to break for McCain. Guess not.
Some Catholics take their faith seriously; others vote for Obama and infanticide.
Boy, ain’t that the troot.
Oh, thank you, Siobhan.
Believe it or not, I'm thinking the opposite. Look at the updated demographics on my profile page. Note that a majority of people who worship weekly, both Catholics and Protestants, all fell in support of McCain over Obama, with the glaring exception of blacks and hispanics.
Also consider that none of the weekly goers even approach the "non-religious" demographic, 75% of which voted for Obama. The most "evangelical" minded among us voted exactly the opposite, favoring McCain by 75% instead. That's evidence in support of the idea that the faithful are being (mostly) different from the world, if only by comparison.
I think there's a reason why we didn't make a difference in the overall vote, like we (supposedly) did in 2000 and 2004. Year-by-year census numbers show that the number of believing, practicing Christians in this country has been steadily declining for decades. I think we have finally shrunk to the level where we've lost any influence over the culture, morality, or politics at large. IMO that's what the 2008 vote demographics are saying.
We can't influence the ballot box, until we start changing the hearts and minds of the unbelievers among us. We'll remain a statistical oddity, "strangers in a foreign land" (Exodus 2:22, cf Jeremiah 5:19), until we increase our numbers (and I don't mean simply filling seats in the pews). We Protestants and Evangelicals need to take the Great Commission and all Ten Commandments seriously again.
A good point. The challenge is to convert the "Sunday go to meeting Christians" into "7 day a week Christians", as well as evangelize the unsaved.
The problem is how do you counter the pop culture, media and schools. Conservatism is a belief based on reason and restraint. Liberalism is a belief based on emotion and no restraint. We can try to segregate ourselves from the outside influences of the overall culture, but then we become an oddity like the Amish.
IMO the answer begins with creating a (counter-)culture for ourselves. The Christians in the first century had their own courts, their own "welfare system", their own traditions and customs. When Rome collapsed, the Christians didn't go with it because they were capable of governing themselves (and others). They'd already learned not to look to the State to meet their needs.
Your "7-day-a-week" comment is a start to doing this. Christians need to rediscover the idea that Jesus Christ is Lord over all of His creation, including politics and government. There is no "neutral area" that the Gospel does not apply to. I'm not talking about ecclesiocracy here. I'm talking about families and businesses and governments being subject to Christ's rule, not subject to a church's rule. There should be a common Lord and a common ethic shared between them all. This country was created and settled by Protestants who held similar ideas. if we want to take our country back from the liberals and the Godless who are turning it into a Nanny Police State, then we Christians better get educated on where that "back" is. Otherwise, we'll just go off in another direction again.
The king went up to the house of the LORD and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.We can try to segregate ourselves from the outside influences of the overall culture, but then we become an oddity like the Amish.
The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.
- 2 Kings 23:2-3
The problem with the Amish is that they do not attempt to evangelize or disciple outsiders. They are not spreading (what they think is) the Gospel. They do not seek to "turn the world upside-down" (Acts 17:6). They are enclavish. If Christians are to be faithful to the Great Commission, they must push back against the overall culture. In military terms, they must seek to gain territory. The Amish, by contrast, only seek to hold onto existing territory, meaning they have willingly forfeited the remaining terrain to their enemies. That's an admission of pessimism and failure if I ever saw one. We are commanded to go, not to stay.
To take it one step further, we should be determining our candidate on the basis of how serious they are about their faith, not necessarily denomination. IOW, it doesn't matter whether they are Baptist, or Roman Catholic, but what does matter is their history. Is the candidate a regular church goer. Is the candidate noted for reading his/her Bible. Is the candidate well respected inside his church. Do we see fruits of the Spirit in them.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Obama wants to lift he ban on embryo harvesting for stem cells.
Those embryos are human life, and yet, where do they come from? Why from the thousands of “extra” zygotes created in labs for infertile couples.
If Protestants could agree with Catholics on the immorality of this practice, and on the practices of donating sperm and eggs for any reason, it would enhance their argument on the sanctity of life.
Where do you think Obama and scientists are going to get their embryos for research from? There is no ethical source.
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