A "lean man who wrote lean prose"

That apt description of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., comes by way of a post on First Things by Nicholas Frankovich titled, "Avery Dulles and the Recovery of Teleology."

Also on First Things, from the January 2009 issue, an article by Joseph Bottum about Obama and abortion that offers what I think is an accurate  and insightful description of the next President of the United States:

On abortion, Obama is the complete man, his support so ingrained that even his carefully controlled public speaking can’t help revealing it. He’s not a fanatic about abortion; he’s what lies beyond fanaticism. He’s the end product of hard-line support for abortion: a man for whom the very question of abortion seems unreal. The opponents of abortion are, for Obama, not to be compromised with or even fought with, in a certain sense. They are, rather, to be explained away as a sociological phenomenon—their pro-life view something that will wither away as they gradually come to understand the true causes of the economic and social bitterness they have, in their undereducated and intolerant way, attached to abortion.

Read the entire piece.

Comments

[joanne]

"in the long run, the fight will never be over until the slaughter of the unborn ceases. And it’s also because the supporters of abortion will not rest with their electoral victory. They are going to push and push until, at last, we stop them."

Interesting article. Odd last line, though. Ambiguous. "...we stop them." "We" who? And "them"? Hoping this means "until we pro-lifers stop abortion." But it sounds like he's saying that pro-lifers will push until pro-"choicers" stop them.
It's "Those bastard pronouns", as a friend used to complain.

[Jeannine]

There's a long road ahead w/no breaks for we, prolifers. I recently read on another website, an article on the children of prolife evangelicals who were educated or should I say indoctrinated in the anti-life public school system. They voted for Mr BO which means they are not as prolife as their parents. I assume this is also happening to the Catholic children from the public schools. Dare I say from some Catholic schools too? The anti-lifers seem to better invest in the future than us. It seems to be a never-ending battle from at least 2 fronts. But, then I think of a protective Father who only has so much patience when His innocent children are being slaughtered.