A little piece of anecdata from a comment on my recent piece at the NC Register “Pope Traumatic Stress Disorder”
I am sure there is nothing to worry about.
This weekend our pastor wrote a column in which he compared people who identify as pro-life to his old friend Tim, a morbidly obese individual who washed down his bacon-cheeseburger and fries with diet coke in the hopes of losing weight. He went on to say that the agenda of pro-lifers is far too often anti-abortion, when it should be much broader and include gun control, environmental issues, the death penalty, yada, yada. Abortion “cannot trump the vast myriad of other life issues”. He cited the Pope’s interview as “long-overdue” support of this position. Needless to say, those of us on the parish pro-life committee feel as if we’ve been punched in the gut. Until this happened I thought you were being unnecessarily alarmist, but believe me, now I get your point.
I am sure the pro-life committee is filled with morally obsessed reactionaries.
October 9, 2013 at 12:08 pm
Someone should send this (and stories like it) to Pope Francis- better yet, everyone pick up the phone and give Papa a call.
October 9, 2013 at 12:57 pm
All dissenting anti-life, anti-family groups and individuals have been emboldened in their evil campaigns by various statements of Pope Francis. There is no comparison between the world-wide, industrial-scale legalising of systematic massacring of innocent defenceless babies (and the spinoff commercial use of their body parts) and other evils for which people have only slight indirect responsibility if any at all. Wholly irrational.
October 9, 2013 at 1:39 pm
You know, I don't remember specifically, but didn't Pope Francis soon after the interview speak forcefully against abortion?
October 9, 2013 at 1:43 pm
Yes, he did, in an address to obstetricians. However, on other occasions certain statements have given oxygen to the pro-abortionists.
October 9, 2013 at 1:40 pm
Oh here we go, back to the seamless garment of the 70s and 80s. I've seen this movie before.
October 9, 2013 at 1:52 pm
I was just going to say, "Yay! Seamless garment! " JB beat me to it, though. They taught this at my high school. Is it any wonder that so many of my classmates, as well as my sister, turned out liberal?
October 9, 2013 at 2:01 pm
Let's compare this statement of John Paul II: "We will stand up and proclaim that no one has the authority to destroy unborn human life!" with "Hey, we have to stop being obsessed with one or two issues, eh? no?"
October 9, 2013 at 3:27 pm
Firstly, the pastor's comparison is offensive because it fails to clearly identify how pro-lifers are like his old friend. It sounds like he flat out called pro-lifers fat and oblivious. Ouch.
Now, I think the point he was trying to make is this: as defenders of human life and dignity, we cannot allow dismantling abortion practices to be our number one priority because all pro-life issues are equally important. This does not mean become softer on abortion – oh no – quite the opposite. We need to be just as adamant about protecting life in all other life issues as we are with abortion. We cannot lose sight of the destruction of human life by divorce, gun violence, drugs, war, poverty, environmental disasters, euthanasia, prostitution, racism, healthcare, and all other things that oppress, stress, and destroy our brothers and sisters in Christ and brothers and sisters who are not in Christ. These issues concern life just as much as abortion.
Pope Francis has said nothing about not stopping our war against abortion (I say war for truly we are fighting for the lives of the unborn) but has given the Church faithful a challenge. Pope Francis wants the Church faithful to focus ourselves more intensely on the pastoral mission of the Church concerning human dignity issues, which can only be done when we stop being ignorant and oblivious to the world's need for the Gospel to be lived in its entirety. Many of us have lost sight of what the Gospel teaches by making ourselves less concerned – thus oblivious – about ALL issues concerning human dignity. We need to proclaim the Gospel in our actions, and it starts by being imitators of Christ.
God Bless!!
October 9, 2013 at 4:58 pm
I would say not to put Catholic doctrine at the whim of political platforms. God made the earth, so I do my small part to minimize my impact in terms of pollution. I still drive, but I dont go through 5 plastic water bottles a day either. COmmon sense. Most of us up here love the environment. Why wouldnt we? God gave it to us and most of my hunter/fisher friends love to be out in it. THey would be more violent about toxic waste in the lake than any greenpeace member. Gun violence. Who is for that? Noone. DOesnt mean I shouldnt be allowed to have a gun.
I think there are points to be made about a comprehensive pro-life value that encompasses all aspects of life. SOmething we Catholics are good at. But making sure it passes my preexisting political bias. THats just wrong. Our doctrine trumps these two silly political parties. It must or we have all been led astray.
October 9, 2013 at 5:26 pm
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October 9, 2013 at 5:27 pm
– Fragment of a letter written by a Rabbi living in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 –
"… cannot be obsessed with these German problems. Judaism is about so much more than these political issues, and we are called by our faith to speak out against all injustices. For instance, unemployment is very high among our people, and this robs our youth of dignity. Also, our elderly are lonely and no one visits them. It seems like their children and grandchildren are nowhere to be found when grandmother needs help. This is a scandal…"
October 9, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Citation, Harry?
October 9, 2013 at 7:47 pm
Scott W said:
Citation, Harry?
Are you…are you serious?
It's satire. I'm making fun of the Pope. I'm making fun of the Pope for saying we should not 'obsess' about abortion. I'm comparing the Pope to a fictitious Rabbi in the midst of the Holocaust who told other Jews not to obsess about it.
OF COURSE no actual Rabbi was that silly…
October 11, 2013 at 8:11 pm
@Harry Seldon: All the Pope was saying is that opposition to evil—the particular evils of our time, or those of another, such as slavery—is not the point of Catholicism. Because opposition to evil is not the point of Catholicism, merely one of its incidental requirements, just as vegetarianism is not the point of Buddhism.
Also, RE: rabbis not being silly, the rabbis were silly enough to say that God created humanity's evil nature (yetzer hora) as well as its good one (yetzer tov), and their justification for this is that the word for "formed" in Genesis 2:7 ("ayetzereh") is written with an extra Y in the Hebrew text ("ayyetzereh"), and this second Y stands for the second nature. I.e., they deduce their moral anthropology, which makes God the author of all human evil, from a typo. (Their version of Satan is also acting on God's orders, as a test.)
Then again, since you take a Judaizing, either Pelagean or Donatist approach to the faith, it is not surprising you respect rabbis more than the Pope.