Abortion Joe

This week has brought an interesting scuffle in Church politics, as it became plain that U.S. prelates cannot bring themselves to state as a unified group that abortion needs to go, and that Catholics must not participate in it, even if they occupy the highest seat in the land.

That’s a pretty low bar, yet some of these dog-faced ponies couldn’t manage to clear it.

USCCB president Archbishop Gomez released a lengthy statement which included the following:

Working with President Biden will be unique, however, as he is our first president in 60 years to profess the Catholic faith. In a time of growing and aggressive secularism in American culture, when religious believers face many challenges, it will be refreshing to engage with a President who clearly understands, in a deep and personal way, the importance of religious faith and institutions. Mr. Biden’s piety and personal story, his moving witness to how his faith has brought him solace in times of darkness and tragedy, his longstanding commitment to the Gospel’s priority for the poor — all of this I find hopeful and inspiring.

At the same time, as pastors, the nation’s bishops are given the duty of proclaiming the Gospel in all its truth and power, in season and out of season, even when that teaching is inconvenient or when the Gospel’s truths run contrary to the directions of the wider society and culture. So, I must point out that our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender. Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.

Our commitments on issues of human sexuality and the family, as with our commitments in every other area — such as abolishing the death penalty or seeking a health care system and economy that truly serves the human person — are guided by Christ’s great commandment to love and to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters, especially the most vulnerable.

For the nation’s bishops, the continued injustice of abortion remains the “preeminent priority.” Preeminent does not mean “only.” We have deep concerns about many threats to human life and dignity in our society. But as Pope Francis teaches, we cannot stay silent when nearly a million unborn lives are being cast aside in our country year after year through abortion.

Abortion is a direct attack on life that also wounds the woman and undermines the family. It is not only a private matter, it raises troubling and fundamental questions of fraternity, solidarity, and inclusion in the human community. It is also a matter of social justice. We cannot ignore the reality that abortion rates are much higher among the poor and minorities, and that the procedure is regularly used to eliminate children who would be born with disabilities.

Rather than impose further expansions of abortion and contraception, as he has promised, I am hopeful that the new President and his administration will work with the Church and others of good will. My hope is that we can begin a dialogue to address the complicated cultural and economic factors that are driving abortion and discouraging families. My hope, too, is that we can work together to finally put in place a coherent family policy in this country, one that acknowledges the crucial importance of strong marriages and parenting to the well-being of children and the stability of communities. If the President, with full respect for the Church’s religious freedom, were to engage in this conversation, it would go a long way toward restoring the civil balance and healing our country’s needs.

Cardinal Blase Cupich–not quite as quick on the draw this time as he was in blocking the McCarrick Report previously–took to the interwebs to let everyone know he was Most Seriously Displeased.

In a flurry of tweets, he stated:

Today, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued an ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden’s inauguration.

Aside from the fact that there is seemingly no precedent for doing so, the statement, critical of President Biden, came as a surprise to many bishops, who received it just hours before it was released.

The statement was crafted without the involvement of the Administrative Committee, a collegial consultation that is normal course for statements that represent and enjoy the considered endorsement of the American bishops.

The internal institutional failures involved must be addressed, and I look forward to contributing to all efforts to that end, so that, inspired by the Gospel, we can build up the unity of the Church, and together take up the work of healing our nation in this moment of crisis.

Cupich wants an approach “inspired by the Gospel.” Guessing he’s not a fan of John the Baptist’s whole “repent of your sins and believe” schtick, which must, in such a view, be taking up a needless amount of space on the sacred page.

Cupich also crafted a separate statement, America Magazine reports, offering his warm congratulations:

“The new administration begins in a time of global pandemic, economic peril and deep division, when millions of our brothers and sisters have been brought low by illness, poverty and racism. We pray that the way forward will be inspired, as the Holy Father asked, by dreaming together.”

The Cardinal was joined in his dudgeon by an unnamed Vatican official, who lamented Gomez’ statement as “most unfortunate” and liable to “create even greater divisions within the church in the United States.”

In separate statement, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, who previously all but endorsed Biden as a candidate before the eyes of the Catholics he leads, declared himself inspired by Biden’s words at the inauguration, and wondered aloud:

“What I don’t understand are people who use very harsh words and want to cut off all communication with the president because of [his stance as Catholic who supports abortion].”

What we have got here is a failure to communicate. Well, let’s clear it up for Nighty-Night, Cupich, and all the rest who supposedly find themselves perplexed, upset, puzzled, or surprised by Catholics expecting one another not to participate in child murder.

Biden earns every censure he gets from the Catholic world. The incredibly mild, kind, and olive-branchy statement from the USCCB doesn’t even fall into that category.

Biden knows the Church’s stance on abortion. Either he doesn’t believe in it, or worse: he does believe in it, but has sold out. He previously supported the pro-life Hyde Amendment, until it became politically inconvenient. He currently chooses to promote his Catholic “Scranton Joe” persona while grossly departing from the biblical commandment Thou Shall Not Kill and from a teaching enshrined in Catholic ethics from the first century.

Is it really so much to ask that a self-identifying Catholic, you know, maybe not advocate for putting millions of living human beings through a meat grinder?

But pointing that out is just too mean for words! (clutches pearls) For some bishops, it’s harsh words that are the real problem here. Not the pile of bodies, you understand, but the impoliteness of mentioning it.

Why, it’s enough to give one the vapors.

The unnamed Vatican official who fretted about disunity had best buckle up. We’re going to fight over this, because it deserves to be fought over.

The fact that the USCCB managed to get out some gentle admonishment of the sinner (a work of mercy, actually) before the Machiavellian hand of Cupich prevented them reveals an interesting fracture. It’s high time we stop papering over this. The divide is here for a reason, and the reason is not negligible.

Any prelate who lacks the fortitude to speak against child murder and/or its public enablers in the Church, or who rages at those who do in order to suck up to the world’s elites, needs to take off his mitre and pectoral cross, and promptly to crawl inside the nearest dumpster, where his garbage words can echo from the appropriate environs.

As we write, Catholic Scranton Joe is preparing to use the power of his executive pen to abolish nearly all the limitations on abortion that a president possibly could.

This includes booting the Mexico City Policy, so that Americans pay for abortions in other countries, where as the “wise” people of this world know, there are just too many brown babies.

He’s also slated to get rid of the “Title X” ban which prevented tax-funded clinics from referring for or promoting abortion. This means Biden is effectively re-funding the grotesquerie that is the Planned Parenthood organization. Salivating over the coming influx of simoleons, PP’s current president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson stated:

“We have a ton of work to do to undo the harm over the last four years, but knowing we have champions there who understand what needs to happen in the first 100 days is tremendously exciting.”

Got that? Old Catholic Scranton Joe is the Abortion Champion, according to the president of the world’s largest abortion provider. They’re tremendously excited at what he is going to do for them.

He further intends to restore the Obama-era contraception mandates, which means the hospice nuns known as “Little Sisters of the Poor” (and any other objector) can be dragged before the courts again for declining to pay for abortifacient and contraceptive drugs.

You can safely bet that those who stumped for remote material cooperation with evil, both clerical & lay, will go on stumping. Looking at the Biden-Harris cabinet, there are going to be plenty of further evils with which to remotely materially cooperate, all whilst dreaming together of a better future for mankind.

But whether you & I follow their Remote-Material-Cooperating lead is, by the grace of God, our choice. And when at length the Church re-gathers and reforms whatever is left of itself, it will not do so around the leadership of McCarrickites or those who did not think the innocent worth protecting (but I repeat myself).

It’s with some irony that this all unfolds during the designated “Year of St. Joseph,” and that this is our current president’s baptismal namesake.

Perhaps God makes Providence of this irony, since what Joseph is best known for is selflessly and courageously protecting the tiny and vulnerable Christ Child growing within the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Joseph didn’t consider this child’s protection to be anyone else’s responsibility but his own. He acted as the ever-vigilant guardian of Jesus in a world where “might makes right” men like Herod were ascendant.

So we call upon St. Joseph to show us how to escape this murderous place in history, just as he led Mary and Jesus far from the swords of the wicked. May he show us how to protect the innocent and forgotten.

May he drive out the demons from every place, and help us to conquer, not to cooperate with, evil.

May he remind each of us what it means to practice fidelity, and to bear the cost of doing so.

May he protect the Church, and confound and defeat her enemies–without or within–that their plans come to nothing.

May he obtain graces for those in positions of fatherhood or leadership, that they turn to God and do not fail to do what is right.

Tuere, o Custos providentissime divinae Familiae, Iesu Christi sobolem electam; prohibe a nobis, amantissime Pater, omnem errorum ac corruptelarum luem; propitius nobis, sospitator noster fortissime, in hoc cum potestate tenebrarum certamine e caelo adesto; et sicut olim Puerum Iesum e summo eripuisti vitae discrimine, ita nunc Ecclesiam sanctam Dei ab hostilibus insidiis atque ab omni adversitate defende: nosque singulos perpetuo tege patrocinio, ut ad tui exemplar et ope tua suffulti, sancte vivere, pie emori, sempiternamque in caelis beatitudinem assequi possimus. Amen. 

Protect, O most provident Guardian of the Holy Family, the chosen children of Jesus Christ; ward off from us, O most loving Father, all taint of error and corruption; graciously assist us from Heaven, O most powerful protector, in our struggle with the powers of darkness; and as thou didst once rescue the Child Jesus from imminent peril to His life, so now defend the Holy Church of God from the snares of her enemies and from all adversity. Shield each one of us with thy unceasing patronage that, imitating thy example and supported by thy aid, we may be enabled to live a good life, die a holy death, and secure everlasting happiness in Heaven. Amen.