Stupak Caves; Get Ready for a Loss

Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak just caved on the "executive order option" so it is now quite likely that the Senate version of the health care reform bill will be passed before we sleep tonight.

With all due respect to the congressman, do you trust this president to keep his promise on the executive order when he has violated so many other promises?

Do you trust the federal courts to respect an executive order even if it is issued, especially since the language of a good executive order on forbidding the public financing of abortions will conflict with the language of the health care reform legislation?

Are you willing to answer to God when a future president issues an executive order canceling this one, if indeed, it comes to pass?

Between "Catholic" lawmakers Stupak and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, who caved even without an empty promise from President Obama, I am just about ready to vomit. They may represent their districts -- then again, come election time, the voters may have other ideas -- but they do not represent traditional Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life.

For that matter, I have problems with many of the bishops who seem to have forgotten the difference between church and state on this and a few other "social justice" issues. There is no way you can justify support of this takeover of the health care system of the United States, this threat to force people to help their neighbor through the kindly ministrations of the Internal Revenue Service, the actual taking of property from people without their consent, through traditional Catholic teaching.

I realize that most readers aren't all that interested in this particular argument, and that's okay. What's important now will be the next great cause, at election time this year, to empty Congress of each and every House and Senate member who stood for this abomination. We can clean the House, every member of whom is up for election. We can go a long way toward purging the Senate, a third of whom are up for re-election.

Our elected leaders in Congress are violating the compact to heed our will. They are creating huge new taxes and entitlements by misrepresenting us. They deserve to be replaced.

We are losing today. We cannot afford to lose in the primaries and in November. May God strengthen us for the task.

Kathleen Sebelius: Her pro-life bonafides are non-existent

The Faux Catholic press corp, also known as Catholics United, is already at work trying to shape the coverage of the nomination of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as the new head of Health & Human Services (HHS) in Washington, D.C.

A blog at U.S. News & World Report today runs puff piece excerpts of Sebelius praising her "pro-life" bonafides, the material furnished to him, he acknowledges, by Catholics United, a heretical group that denies the teachings and authority of the Church it pretends to represent. He quotes this:

My Catholic faith teaches me that all life is sacred, and personally I believe abortion is wrong. However, I disagree with the suggestion that criminalizing women and their doctors is an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the number of abortions in our nation.

There is another way. By working in support of the common good we can better protect human life and the dignity of all people.

Sebelius claims that she's worked to curtail abortions. The truth is that she's done nothing to oppose them and much to protect those who are in the abortion business, like her personal and political pal George Tiller, aka Tiller the Killer, a Wichita, Ks., based abortionist who specializes in late term baby killing.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life (an organization that is in full compliance with Catholic teaching), had this to say of her nomination:

"It is not appropriate that an individual who supports abortion occupy this post. Abortion has nothing to do with health. There is no disease that abortion cures and there is no medical benefit to the procedure. Both Kathleen Sebelius and Barack Obama should know better."

Here's a bit of what LifeSite News had to say:

Sebelius has one of the most radical pro-abortion record of any elected official and a longstanding relationship with a late-term abortion practitioner. [SNIP]

Obama's decision to allow word of his selection to lead ot the media first on a Saturday is designed to play down news coverage of his selection of a hardcore abortion advocate to lead his health care reform efforts and to implement his pro-abortion agenda. ]SNIP]

Sebelius is most notorious for her close relationship with late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller, who has escaped prosecution and accountability thus far for allegedly repeatedly violating state abortion laws. However, a judge recently ruled charges against him from the state attorney general's office can move ahead.

He's done so in part because of the lax standards of Sebelius and her political allies, to whom Tiller has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars. Governor Sebelius vetoed a bill last April that the legislature approved that would have strengthened the state's limits on late-term abortions.

That followed by a year her veto of a bill requiring explicit medical reasons for a late abortion, which was preceded by vetoing other pro-life legislation in 2006, 2005 and 2003.

Sebelius went as far as to coordinate a secret event with Tiller at the governor's mansion that was criticized because her staff failed to officially report the event.

Her position favoring abortion is so radical and extreme that Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City called on her to stop receiving communion until she disowns her support for the "serious moral evil" of abortion.

Leading pro-life groups have unanimously blasted the potential of Sebelius serving as Health Secretary because of her longstandinging pro-abortion record.

"Sebelius is joined at the hip with the abortion industry," Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, tells LifeNews.com. "She owes them her political career and has been more than willing to pay them back with personal favors that have shielded them from legislation and criminal prosecution. Her corrupt abortion politics make her unfit to serve."

I'd stop right there but there is another interesting item they included:

Sebelius attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser on the occasion of her birthday in May, 2007 where CEO Peter Brownlie led a conga-line dance in her honor during the party.

Brownlie's clinic was later charged with 107 criminal counts of conducting illegal late-term abortions. Those charges are now pending.

Conga line? What's with all the conga lines?

A 'Heads up' for Pope Benedict

Deal Hudson has a few words of friendly warning for Pope Benedict before Nancy Pelosi shows up at the front steps of the Vatican.

With the debilitating illness of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Pelosi has become the de facto leader of dissident Catholic members of Congress.

It's only appropriate that Pelosi should take Kennedy's place. When she became Speaker in January 2006, she chose Rev. Robert Drinan, S.J., as the celebrant of the Mass held in her honor. The late Father Drinan, a longtime professor of law at Georgetown University, had been the architect of the arguments now used as cover by Catholic politicians who wish to dodge the abortion issue. This effort began in 1964, when Father Drinan was among a small group of theologians who visited Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to school the Kennedy clan on how to finesse the abortion issue in politics.

Pelosi's 100 percent voting record on abortion, according to NARAL, is commonplace among Catholic Democrats in the House, but Pelosi is, perhaps, the most vocal among them. For example, millions of dollars for contraceptives were cut from the first version of the stimulus package; 0nly Pelosi, rather incoherently, defended the funding.

In August, she made such outrageous comments about the Church on Meet the Press that she single-handedly endangered President Barack Obama's outreach to Catholic voters. When, to support her pro-abortion stance on when life begins, she asserted, "Over the centuries, the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition," Pelosi elicited a rebuke not only from her ordinary, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco, but also from dozens of other bishops.

Hudson thinks it's a good idea for Pope Benedict to meet with Speaker Pelosi because "one can never underestimate the impact of being in his presence." (In other words, a miracle might take place.) He also holds out hope that the pope might offer reporters remarks critical of Pelosi's legislative accomplishments, perhaps admonishing President Obama "for ending the Mexico City Policy and warning the new Congress against passing the Freedom of Choice Act."

I think this is the correct way to view the situation although I, like many Catholics, are very unhappy that this dissident woman thinks she represents us!

Will Pelosi receive communion in Rome? Probably. To her own eventual detriment, unless she repents.

You can be sure that Pelosi will choreograph her visit to get maximum exposure of her Catholic identity -- down to a photograph of her entering St. Peter's Basilica in a veil, no doubt. Pelosi, of course, should be denied communion, but it is unlikely to happen. Any priest who celebrates Mass with Pelosi present will be carefully chosen beforehand in order to avoid embarrassment to the Speaker and her entourage.

One final quote is in order. You may recognize it:

"Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come!" (Mt. 18:7)