A Major Breakthrough - 1 of 2

A Major Breakthrough - 1 of 2
In pursuit of the truth – www.cinopsbegone.com – Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Ref: http://calcatholic.com/news/newsArticlePrintable.aspx?id=47894bf8-8bfc-466e-bld6-e046... 9/18/2009

Preface: There has been a major breakthrough with the challenge of how to deal with Catholic-in-name-only politicians for bishops and practicing Catholic laity.

Part 1 of the following editorial, written by Father Roger Landry, appeared September 11 edition of The Anchor from the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and is a step in the right direction.

Last week, our editorial argued that one of the most important lessons pastors of the Church in the United States need to draw from the history of interactions with Senator Ted Kennedy on the sanctity of human life is that a strategy of conscience-education-alone with “personally opposed pro-choice” Catholic politicians hasn’t worked.

The attempt to engage, teach and help persuade such politicians to conversion didn’t succeed with Senator Kennedy and it hasn’t succeeded yet with other pro-choice Catholic legislators.

To say that it hasn’t succeeded, however, is really not strong enough. It’s possible, after all, to fail a test with a grade of 59; in such a case a student would be able to take some solace that, while there are some areas in need of improvement, he was close to minimal success.

If a student fails a test with close to a zero, on the other hand, he obviously needs to make some radical changes if he ever hopes to succeed. And that is closer to the candid assessment that leaders of the Church need to make relative to the education-alone strategy during the past few decades.

Let us take an honest look at the numbers. When we survey the long list of pro-choice Catholic politicians from both parties – Kennedy, Kerry, Giuliani, Schwarzenegger, Daschle, Dodd, Durban, Leahy, Mikulski, Pelosi, Delahunt, Capuano, Markey, McGovern, Meehan, Granholm, Sebelius, Pataki, Richardson, Cellucci, Cuomo, and Biden to name just a handful – is it possible to say that the strategy has worked with any of them? Over the last three and a half decades, can we point to even one success story?

Another way to assess the results of the education-alone strategy is to measure the direction that pro-choice Catholic politicians have moved over the years. Even if they haven’t experienced a total conversion, have they moved closer toward limiting abortions or toward making abortions easier to access?

The facts show that the vast majority of personally opposed, publicly pro-choice Catholic legislators have become far less personally opposed and far more publicly in favor over the duration of strategy.
In the initial years after Roe vs. Wade, publicly pro-choice Catholic legislators generally whispered their support for abortion. They displayed a palpable sense of shame, letting their abortion position out just enough so that it wouldn’t cost them the votes of abortion supporters.

That discomfort began to dissipate after Governor Mario Cuomo’s 1984 pro-choice defense at Notre Dame. We’ve now come to a situation when pro-choice Catholic legislators vigorously curry favor of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Pro-Choice America and Emily’s List: scores of Catholics in Congress have the chutzpah to co-sponsor the Freedom of Choice Act, (FOCA), which would eliminate almost every abortion restriction ever passed at the federal or state level; and 16 out of 25 Catholic Senators vote against conscience protection to prevent fellow Catholics in the medical field from being forced to participate in abortions and sterilization. ..
George H. Kubeck