I don’t watch Bill O’Reilly mainly because (and I know some people will laugh at this) I think he’s a squishy.
People often take his loud mouth to mean he’s principled. But it’s just a loud mouth. I sometimes admire his logic but when it comes to abortion he gets awfully squirrelly. Get a load of this illogical statement as reported by Catholic Online:
The No-Spin Zone is once again in need of some actual truth. I tuned in on Friday night to hear Bill O’Reilly read a letter from a viewer in New York who asked him why he keeps referring to the fetus as a “potential human being.” This viewer reminded Bill that as a Roman Catholic, he should know better! How absolutely correct. O’Reilly, however, responded this way:
“I’m absolutely factually correct when I say a fetus is a potential human being and no one can deny that. I respect your opinion but until you become a Supreme Court Justice, it remains your opinion, your belief. I can’t run this program based upon my religious beliefs, so I try to put up arguments based on facts and I believe we are successful in doing that.”
Factually correct? Does Bill O’Reilly somehow believe that religious beliefs are somehow different than actual facts? Does he compartmentalize reality and religion?
Seriously, what is he talking about? Where in the world of science does the term “potential human” come into play? And does O’Reilly believe that Supreme Court justices are arbiters of truth? Because I’m pretty sure I’ve heard O’Reilly disagree with the Court on occasion.
So just to be clear O’Reilly seems to be choosing the “truth” of the Supreme Court over the truth of his Catholicism. Seems like a pitiful dodge to me. Truth shouldn’t be compartmentalized. You can’t say that you believe that the unborn are human unless you’re on television and then all bets are off and you’re somehow required to repeat the talking points of the Supreme Court.
It’s a pretty sad evasion. But sadly, I fear it’s a pretty darn common one.
January 11, 2011 at 4:25 am
I really wish the Church would exercise a bit of her authority when people are overtly heterodox. As a convert, one of the issues that won me over was that of authority… how wonderful it would be to see it used every now and then…
January 11, 2011 at 4:31 am
Oh no, Bill O'Reilly! Et tu?
I've never heard him say that…I get mad enough when he fails to correct that bimbo Margaret Hoover when she emphatically says "potential human" in her annoying, self-assured (mistaken) way.
January 11, 2011 at 4:37 am
Bill O'Reilly = FAIL.
He has a voice but does not use it to protect the unborn.
January 11, 2011 at 4:38 am
O'Reilly is a friend of the dissident priest Richard Mc'Brien from Notre Dame and NC Register. AMCHURCH all the way.
January 11, 2011 at 4:43 am
CORRECTION – That's NC REPORTER, not Register…
[i.e., "O'Reilly is a friend of the dissident priest Richard Mc'Brien from Notre Dame and NC REPORTER. AMCHURCH all the way."
Apologies to the Register!
January 11, 2011 at 4:50 am
I saw this segment the other night and wanted very much to reach through the screen and smack O'Reilly upside the head.
"So just to be clear O'Reilly seems to be choosing the "truth" of the Supreme Court over the truth of his Catholicism."
He's also choosing it over science and every secular embryology text book. What.an.arrogant.idiot.
January 11, 2011 at 4:57 am
The man is a spineless jellyfish. O'Reilly needs to start following the teachings of the Church and not his personal feelings or the "church of the Supreme Court".
January 11, 2011 at 5:05 am
A loudmouth in a nice suit. End of story.
January 11, 2011 at 12:25 pm
An unfertilized egg is a potential human being. A fertilized egg (blastocyst, embryo, fetus, whatever) is a human being. To say otherwise is to ignore science.
January 11, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Ask O'Reilly how many times he's covered the March for Life.
January 11, 2011 at 2:50 pm
As Fr. Corapi so eloquently says "A fetus is not a potential human being ….. a fetus is a human being with potential".
Beautiful.
January 11, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Not that I agree with this moronic windbag, but the only thing I can think of in his defense with respect to this particular remark is that he wants to argue from the premises of his opponents, those who do not accept the fact that a fertilized egg is a human being, but only a potential one, and then make his case against abortion from there. Maybe that's what he meant, but with his limited intellectual faculties, he was unable to articulate it clearly. I have not watched his show, so I can't comment on whether he would or would not support abortion.
January 11, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Wow, I definitely would never have guessed he is a Roman Catholic… and his logic is sad. He is in need of lesson in Aquinas!
January 11, 2011 at 6:22 pm
I cannot bear to watch O'Reilly. He is insufferable, pompous, condescending, and supremely egotistical. He invites guests and never lets them speak. There is never a thought, an approach, an invention, or an achievement that he hasn't accomplished first. Sorry to hear he's a Catholic. With all the verbiage he spews forth day in and day out you'd think that might have been apparent. The fact that it's not evident speaks volumes.
January 11, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Jen, would that a Bishop exercise his "Authority" and his office to teach rule and sanctify- and in doing so help Bill Reilly save his immortal soul- if he persists in the potential dodge he professes and in doing so in any way confuses someone as to the reality of abortion, he may be held accountable.
and if you think- " he didn't know ; I say he is quick to professes his Catholicism and has I'm sure heard
" Father, forgive them, THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY DO !!!!
January 11, 2011 at 6:48 pm
While I admire Bill O'Reily especially for his charitable works, I believe his first allegiance is to his Church. He says he always gives both sides of a story, but when it comes to abortion, he wavers. I think his success has somewhat gone to his head. I am especially upset about his close relationship with Glen Beck who has spoken anti-Catholic sentiments quite a few times, yet O'Reilly never calls him on it.
January 11, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Bill O'Reilly is really very arrogant, self-centered and extremely rude to his guests, never letting them speak but using them as a foil for his own blathering. And I wish I could reach him about his absurd comment about the fetus being a 'potential human being' – but he is firmly against abortion and can barely control his anger and disgust when guests push for it; he does a tremendous amount of charitable works…but the most important for me is he really defends children against abuse…however, he could learn some humility and he could learn more about his faith.
January 11, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Which is why I have never been an O'Reilly fan since he is squish. His false populism leads him to want to sound fair, but that causes his lack of clarity.
January 11, 2011 at 8:11 pm
@Subvet…or as we say in Chicago, he's "a lot of talk and a badge." Jill Stanek has a link to her appearance on the Factor from years ago, and Bill was visibly moved, and disturbed, by Jill's description of the goings on at Christ Hospital. We're all in danger of allowing the abortion argument to become merely an argument, a back and forth in our minds. Bill needs the Face The Truth tour (with it's graphic images of aborted infants) to pull into the No Spin Zone and remind him that this is more than a mental exercise on a pundit show.
January 11, 2011 at 11:36 pm
DIVINELY INSPIRED SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS
You are men sacred to me for I the Lord am sacred. God tells the Israelites this every time God hands down a decree in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is true God and true man, a perfect human being. Therefore, any law that expresses the sacred in the human being is sacred. From the Baltimore Catechism we are told to know, love and serve God. The Declaration of Independence declares that these truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by OUR CREATOR with Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The pursuit of Happiness is the single cell endowed with sovereign personhood, free will, conscience, a human soul growing into a human body, the inheritance spoken of in the Gospels. Our Constitution is predicated upon the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is predicated upon the Ten Commandments. Freedom of religion is all men being equally free to know, love and serve God. Freedom of speech to speak to God, write about God and peaceably assemble to worship God and to petition the government if these freedom are abrogated. The whole constitution is about God through the sovereign person who constitutes the state through the sovereignty endowed by our CREATOR and declared in our Declaration of Independence. Human beings may not be owned as slaves, may not be murdered and may not do any harm to his neighbor. If the Ten Commandments are divinely inspired, than the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, too, are divinely inspired.
The Constitution has no penumbras and no separation of church and state. When the atheist went before the Supreme Court, in Engel v. Vitale, the court said: “She can go her own way” Freedom of Religion. The Media Circus bannered “PRAYER BAN”. The mob mentality demanded that all religious symbols or sentiment be denied. The Supreme Court said that ALL people’s religious expression be allowed. The Supreme Court cannot ban a First Amendment civil right. The Supreme Court never barred expression of Faith in God, the media did. (and they have less power than any living creature because they are not right.) The atheist perjured herself denying the God-given endowed by our Creator, civil rights she claimed as her own.
Denying the freedom of Religion to man rung the death knell for America, for once God was removed from the public square, abortion, the lie about the endowed self-evident truths of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and about OUR CREATOR, perjury in the court, murder of virgins in the womb could not be stopped. Pornography, the lie about human sexuality, as free speech went forward. Homosexual behavior, the lie about the laws of nature and nature’s God and perjury in a court of law as well as insult to the parents who bore him, is going forward. Prostitution, a lie about the sacredness of the human being and perjury in court is now employment. Virginity, Innocence, and especially charity are no longer held in trust for our posterity. All civil rights, endowed by OUR CREATOR are held in trust for all mankind born and unborn, all generations to come, our constitutional posterity, until the age of majority when these persons become the trustees of the next generation’s endowed civil rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.