A New Front in the Church’s Civil War

A New Front in the Church’s Civil War  | George Neumayr | Editorial | Catholic World Report | April 2009

The “pro-life” case for pro-abortion Catholic politicians like Kathleen Sebelius

Modern liberal Catholics chuckle at the history of casuistry in the Church even as they contribute grimly absurd new examples to it. They use tortured reasoning not to discuss the properties of angels but to cloud the records of abortion proponents.

How many dissenting, not very angelic Catholic politicians can dance with modernists’ approval at the head of a pro-abortion administration? An astonishing number, it turns out, and the list is growing. Kathleen Sebelius is the latest Catholic appointment to seize upon their strained sophistries.

No sooner had President Barack Obama nominated the governor of Kansas to head up the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) than “26 Catholic leaders, scholars, and theologians” started up a petition and website to support her.

The website is riddled with deceptions. The first one is the group’s self-description as pro-life and “faithful” to Catholicism. It isn’t. Most of its members—such as Lisa Sowle Cahill and Margaret O’Brien Steinfels—wish to liberalize magisterial teaching and falsely regard the Church’s pro-life stance as a sectarian claim (with which they happen to agree) and not a truth accessible to the reason of all.

Read the entire editorial...

Comments

[LJ]

"Most of its members—such as Lisa Sowle Cahill and Margaret O’Brien Steinfels—wish to liberalize magisterial teaching and falsely regard the Church’s pro-life stance as a sectarian claim (with which they happen to agree) and not a truth accessible to the reason of all."

It makes one wonder how long it has been since these folks have had a look at the science, or have had a look at what abortion is.

It also makes one wonder what exactly is the motivation behind the strategy of the Obama administration (and candidacy) in actively seeking out Catholics (self-professed) to lure them with power. And it does seem at this point to be a very deliberate strategy. Whatever the thinking on the political level, it certainly is bringing us closer to a point in time that many people would rather put off.

Neumayr speaks of a new front in the civil war. This war is being played out in American politics and the American Church but it is world-wide and in a sense it is the same old war. We just have to recognize it for what it is. The problem is, as the history of the Church shows us, there really are only two ways out of this for those of us who long for a separating of the sheep and the goats or at least a moving of the battlefield beyond the Church doors, or at least out of the communion line. Those are; massive renewal, or persecution.

One way or another, it has to be really uncomfortable for dissenters to try to maintain their "devout" status. The Holy Spirit can accomplish this with our co-operation, or let Satan accomplish it without our co-operation.

The way I see it.

[Ed Peters]

"If [Sibelius] is qualified to lead HHS, then Dr. Kevorkian is qualified to run Medicare."

Great line.