The Myth of "Settled Doctrine"

From The Catholic Thing:

So this “settled doctrine,” what is it? At every step it is a lie. It is a lie about when life begins. It is a lie that the fetus is not human from conception. It is a lie that we cannot strive to do something about it. It is a lie that it is the common good that these infants perish because we decide that it is “necessary,” a “choice,” a “right,” “the law.” It is a lie that we do not need the infants that we have systematically killed. It is a lie that each abortion is not an intentional killing of one of our kind by one of our kind.


“Settled doctrine” is a rule-of-the-thumb judicial maxim, like “Odiosa sunt restringenda” or “In dubiis libertas." These latter are legal customs designed to protect the one who must obey from unclear, though generally just laws. Can we have “settled doctrine” over unjust laws? This is the claim we are confronted with.


The “settled doctrine” of slavery was challenged on grounds of its moral rightness. From whence could such grounds arise? Surely not from “settled doctrine” itself. “Settled customs” in the ancient world maintained that, given a choice between death and slavery after defeat in battle, most men would choose slavery. Therefore, slavery was tolerated. Those who chose death over slavery were always more admired.


The same people who oppose the “settled doctrine” of slavery on moral grounds reject these same grounds when it comes to aborted human beings. This obtuseness can only be explained as a willful blindness justified as a conflict of “rights.” The shifting reasons given for abortion have come to be simply, “We will it.” All arguments for it are at bottom based on lies. But “rights,” we are told, do not apply to human beings at every stage in their growth. We used to say that if children managed successfully to be born, they were human. But now we also eliminate the born. The so-called “right to a dead fetus” or to a “perfect child” is claimed to be a higher obligation.


“Settled doctrine?” It is settled only if we will it to be settled. It is “settled” if we lie to ourselves about what it is we kill. It is “settled” if we reverse the Socratic principle that founded our civilization, namely, “It is, after all, right to do wrong.” Why? Because we will it. “Quod placuit principi, legis habet vigorem” (I-II, 90, 1, ob. 3).


In the end, “No evil can come to an unjust man.” This too is “settled doctrine” among those who deny what Benedict XVI called, in Spe Salvi, the “Final Judgment.”

Indeed, slavery was enshrined within the Constitution itself and yet we turned away from that horror and injustice which itself is less horrible and less unjust than infanticide.

Abortion advocates invoke "settled doctrine" because they have lost the moral argument and so resort to the legal one.

Follow the Money

Surprise---Lefty billionaire George Soros is funding the "Catholic" groups supporting Obama.

Where's Doug Kmiec's money coming from?

30 pieces of silver have to come from somewhere.

"Judgment Day Is On Its Way"

...and Pope Pelosi I and Joseph Cardinal Biden along with the Obamessiah they serve had better be wary---the grilling they will face then will be far worse than the softball interviews with which the Left Wing Media favors them.

These self-righteous and morally corrupt Democrats are a living example of the proslavery Democrats of a prior age---they have no consciences and yet endeavor to moralize to those who do.

Something Pope Nancy I and Joe Cardinal Biden Ought To See

This is what Catholic faith IS.

Don't claim to be a devout Catholic if you'd argue with this.

Joe Cardinal Biden Theologizes Again

And with the usual misleading incoherence.

Let's see what the Catechism of the Catholic Church---available to everyone, not just Catholics, but which any "devout Catholic" should have memorized---has to say on this vexing issue:

Abortion

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72


Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:


You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,"77 "by the very commission of the offense,"78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."80

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights."81

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."82

2275 "One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival."83

"It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material."84

"Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity"85 which are unique and unrepeatable.

Sure doesn't sound like the Church is in a quandary over the evil of abortion, does it?

Somebody send Joe Biden, Doug Kmiec, and Nancy Pelosi a copy of the Catechism---please!

Obama Runs from Debate

The Obamessiah won't debate Jews who disagree with him, quite unlike the real Messiah.

Putting Phony Catholics In Perspective

See if you can spot anything wrong with the following:

The way out is to remember that when there are differences among religious creeds, none is entitled to be given preference in law or policy.

Sometimes the law must simply leave space for the exercise of individual judgment, because our religious or scientific differences of opinion are for the moment too profound to be bridged collectively. When these differences are great and persistent, as they unfortunately have been on slavery, the common political ideal may consist only of that space. This does not, of course, leave the right to liberty undecided or unprotected. Nor for that matter does the reservation of space for individual determination usurp for Caesar the things that are God's, or vice versa. Rather, it allows this sensitive moral decision to depend on religious freedom and the voice of God as articulated in each individual's voluntary embrace of one of many faiths.

Anything wrong with that statement?

How about this one:

The way out is to remember that when there are differences among religious creeds, none is entitled to be given preference in law or policy.

Sometimes the law must simply leave space for the exercise of individual judgment, because our religious or scientific differences of opinion are for the moment too profound to be bridged collectively. When these differences are great and persistent, as they unfortunately have been on abortion, the common political ideal may consist only of that space. This does not, of course, leave the right to life undecided or unprotected. Nor for that matter does the reservation of space for individual determination usurp for Caesar the things that are God's, or vice versa. Rather, it allows this sensitive moral decision to depend on religious freedom and the voice of God as articulated in each individual's voluntary embrace of one of many faiths.

The latter is the actual quote from Doug Kmiec's op-ed urging pro-life Catholics to give up their principled stance and support the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in U.S. history.

The former is my slight rewording of that statement.

If the first strikes you as a shocking example of moral equivalence, relativism, and blindness, but the latter does not, you need to ask yourself this question:

"Is murdering a person worse than shackling him?"

The Bible is clear on this. Perhaps Kmiec ought to read it more, and write op eds less.

Catholics Cannot Vote for Obama

And obey Church teaching on morality, that is.


The formulation is quite simple:

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is evil.

Obama is pro-abortion.

Voting for Obama is supporting evil.

As the Good Book and "Pale Rider" note, "You cannot serve God and Mammon both."

So which will it be, Catholics?

How U.S. Bishops Got Serious about Abortion and Scandal

This is interesting:

Some reports at the time said the task force was a response to the Vatican’s doctrinal note on Catholics in political life a year before. But this now appears naïve. The reality seems to be that it was established to address the looming question of how the bishops would deal with a Kerry candidacy. Or rather, not deal with it.

The task force came into being at the request of Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, then Archbishop of Washington, DC, and was approved by the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Having initiated the idea, McCarrick was the obvious person to run it.

The first observable effect of the task force was to silence the staff of the USCCB Pro-Life Secretariat. My wife was the principal public spokesman for that office at the time. She was told not to answer any questions about Kerry and abortion in light of the task force.

Less easy to gauge was the effect of the task force on bishops’ willingness to speak out. Were they also made to understand that they should hold their tongues in deference to the official group and the guidelines they produced?

And when would the task force issue its guidelines? It became clear that the guidelines would not be issued until after the election – long after they could have any bearing on the candidacy of the first pro-abortion Catholic in American history to run for president.

Was it Cardinal McCarrick’s purpose to establish a study group in order to bury the problem until after the election? It’s impossible to know, but we can consider the effects of his actions: the task force was established at his request, the Pro-Life Secretariat was silenced on the most pressing pro-life issue of the time, the bishops in large part stayed mum likely in deference to the ongoing study, a study which was timed not to end until well past the election.

We know now that things spun out of control. While Cardinal McCarrick’s final report was scheduled for after the election, the bishops held one of their twice-annual meetings in Colorado that June and two unusual things happened: the mostly liberal lay staff was booted out of the meeting so that the bishops could talk without their influence, and Cardinal McCarrick delivered “interim reflections” of the task force.

He warned against denying anyone the Eucharist, and he claimed that “Vatican officials” also “advised caution,” and concluded that, “The task force does not advocate the denial of Communion to Catholic politicians.”

Yet several days later the actual memorandum from Cardinal Ratzinger to Cardinal McCarrick was leaked to the press, showing that Ratzinger had said, in fact, that pro-abortion Catholic politicians “must” be refused Communion after proper counseling and obstinate persistence in defying Church teaching. Ultimately, the bishops as a body produced a document leaving the matter to the discretion of each bishop in his own diocese.

This is old news, but sheds new light on the current debate. This year there is no McCarrick Committee keeping the conversation sotto voce among an elite few. And this year the bishops are thundering. It is not just the heroic few – Chaput, Burke, and a few others – who were willing to suffer criticism in 2004. Now it is a whole bunch of them, more than thirty at this point. Moreover, the list includes those – like Edward Cardinal Egan of New York and McCarrick's successor Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington DC – who have tended to work quietly behind the scenes in the past.

While it is sad that McCarrick was more concerned about slightly embarrassed Democrat politicians than dead babies, it is good to see the bishops eventually came around to the most essential moral teaching of the Church: that we are children of God, and that God has not granted us the power of life and death over His children.

Yet Another Reason Why Their Will One Day Be A St Teresa of Calcutta

Read this, and compare it to the mealy-mouthed weasel-wording of a Barack Obama, a Nancy Pelosi, a Joe Biden.

I know which of the four represented true hope and change.

I know which of the four had truly been touched by God.

Another Twisted Obamessiah Video

Obama is not God.

God is not mocked.

Like Putting A Pig in a Prom Dress

Expecting the Left Wing Media to report on religion, that is.

Calling Abortion Enabler-in-Chief Kmiec

Explain exactly how the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in U.S. history is going to make abortion more rare by doing away with state abortion restrictions en toto.

Kmiec is not fatuous and gullible, but rather dishonest. One cannot examine Obama's proposals and record without revealing a callous disregard for human life and dignity at the core of this very hollow man.

The "Religious" Left Fetes Ahmadinejad

Of course they do, ever unable to distinguish between the holy and the demonic as they are.

Catholic OR Democrat?

I'm with Ramesh Ponnuru---I'm sick of people like Kmiec who whore out Mother Church for the sake of whichever Lefty pol will hire them.

For shame, Kmiec---if Christ had been willing to trade God for temporal power where would we all be today?

We shall all have to account for ourselves to the victims of the Democrats' embrace of abortion, euthanasia, and other pillars of the Culture of Death. What will Kmiec say to them then? "Well, sure, you had it pretty bad, but I have a graph showing the hypothetical numbers of others who through improved economic conditions....."

A moral midget of shorter stature than even Pope Pelosi and Joseph Cardinal Biden.

The Culture of Death Blowback Continues for Dems

The "ardent Catholics" among them had better beware.

"Hitler's Pope" Author Recants

Unfortunately, the noxious falsehood he promulgated of the Pope not being opposed to the Nazis will die hard.

The Church has too many enemies who don't care about truth so long as they have a useful talking point for it to be otherwise.

Another Lefty Church Cozies Up To A Tyrant

Utterly predictable and utterly despicable behavior on the part of the United Church of Communism.

Pope Nancy I and Joseph Cardinal Biden

Still clueless on Catholicism.

A Saint Among Us

Thomas S. Vander Woude:

Thomas S. Vander Woude, 66, died last week while helping his son Joseph, who has Down syndrome, after he fell into a septic tank while working in the yard, police said. The tank was eight to 10 feet deep, Steve Vander Woude said.

His father climbed into the 2-by-2-foot opening, managed to get under Joseph and was pushing him upward to keep his head above the sewage. Initially, Vander Woude was able to keep his own head above the muck, telling a workman who was helping from above, "You pull, I'll push," Steve Vander Woude said. But he eventually sank and was later pulled out by rescue workers, who were unable to revive him, Prince William County police said.

Joseph, 20, was hospitalized last week with pneumonia but was released Saturday and attended the Mass for his father in a wheelchair, connected to an oxygen tank. His family said doctors expect a full recovery. A few days after his father's death, Joseph's family sat with him in the hospital and explained to him that his father had died.

Upon hearing the news, Joseph "sat back . . . he closed his eyes, his chin quivered, and he started crying," Steve Vander Woude said. "I think he understands as much as he can right now."

Another of Thomas S. Vander Woude's sons, Tom Vander Woude, pastor at Queen of Apostles Catholic Church in Alexandria, gave the homily. In it, he likened his father to Saint Joseph, a man who patiently and quietly supported his family, did odd jobs for those in need and was content to worship God and not seek the limelight, Tom Vander Woude said.

The headline of the article---"Father Who Saved Son Is Remembered For Generosity"---is a ridiculous understatement, and a testament to the inability of the Left Wing Media to understand the world except through the lens of the Culture of Death they embrace and for which they advocate ceaselessly.

To them, a heroic act such as this is quite simply unthinkable. Joseph Vander Woude's life to them should have ended in utero, as 90% of children with Down's Syndrome's lives do. They lack the moral compass to begin to understand how a man like Thomas S. Vander Woude could climb down into filth in order to rescue his disabled son.

For the rest of us, we can understand such love and devotion on some level, because that is the love which God has shown us through Christ's sacrifice, and the sacrifices of the saints, of which Thomas S. Vander Woude is surely one.

May God bless and keep him forever, and look out for his son, Joseph, given the remarkable gift of life from his father in a way the rest of us fathers can only hope we'd be willing to give for our children's lives.