Pillar To Post On Transgenderism

If you read Paul McHugh here and Fr. Robert Barron here ,you go from a medical to a theological perspective on the subject of transgenderism, and there's not much ground left on which to build any kind of rationale for what the Bruce Jenners of the world have done to themselves. Unless, of course, one persists with the kind of thinking described in this article.  Finally, enter a philosopher, here, to discuss gender identity.

McHugh, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University which led the way in sex change operations, lays it out pretty clearly.  Sex change operations haven't been performed at Johns Hopkins since the 70s; no benefits have been shown and in fact the suicide rate and psychological problems increased among those who had undergone the operation.  Gender dysphoria, explains Dr. McHugh, is a psychological problem akin to anorexia nervosa   Using the Emperor-Has-No-Clothes approach, McHugh deftly explains the dishonesty and deception that leads anyone in our society (but most tragically young people who become persuaded to undergo transgender "treatments") to believe that changing their body will cure their dysphoria.  Dr. McHugh writes:  "Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they “identify.” In that lies their problematic future."

Enter Fr. Barron who refers us to Gnosticism, that heresy which says that matter is evil, that our physical bodies are an encumbrance, that a secret knowledge, gnosis, will set our souls free from the material world which imprisons us.  Fr. Barron points out the similarities to the transgender cry--I'm really a man (or woman) "trapped" inside a physical body which, if I change it, will set the man (or woman) inside me free.  Fr. Barron writes, .". . . the gnostic heresy has proven remarkably durable, reasserting itself across the centuries. Its most distinctive mark is precisely the denigration of matter and the tendency to set the spirit and the body in an antagonistic relationship. This is why many thinkers have identified the anthropology of René Descartes, which has radically influenced modern and contemporary attitudes, as neo-gnostic. Descartes famously drove a wedge between spirit and matter, or in his language, between the res cogitans (thinking thing) and the res extensa (thing extended in space)."

He concludes, "Until we realize that the lionization of Caitlyn Jenner amounts to an embracing of Gnosticism, we haven’t grasped the nettle of the issue."

As for what the Church teaches, we are to believe in neither Cartesian dualism nor Gnostic heresies but in the body and soul as inseparable parts of our humanity.  Extrapolating from what Dr. McHugh says, science, that is, the natural world, and the Church bring us to the same spot.  We are created male and female and any unrest some individual may feel with his or her physical body doesn't mean that God made a mistake.  It means that individual needs some help.

It seemed to me this quartet of articles on gender and sexuality complemented one another and enlightened in a helpful way.  These thoughts are a mere skating on the surface of the topic.

Surrogate Mothers

A report from Ireland's Iona Institue as covered by Zenit spells out very clearly why surrogate motherhood is wrong, as in immoral.  A few quotes from the article:

 “Surrogacy compromises the dignity of the child by making the child the object of a contract—a commodity,” the report argued. “It further compromises the dignity of the mother, even if her participation is voluntary, by merely treating her as a ’womb for hire’,” it added.  

 The commodification of children in surrogacy was highlighted by the report when it mentioned that due to the high costs involved couples tend to have the mentality that they deserve children who are more likely to be good-looking and successful in life.

Adoption is substantially different from surrogacy, the report argued. In adoption the birth mother makes a decision based on what is best for the child. By contrast, in surrogacy the decision is made by the adopting parents based on what is best for them. “It is therefore inherently adult-centred in a way adoption is not,” the report added.

“Women’s bodies become commodities through which others can purchase what they wish to have, and most or all care, concern, and medical attention is directed at the child while the surrogate mother is left to fend for herself,” the report commented. 

And finally,  

The increasing trend to the legalization of same-sex marriages will inevitably lead to higher demand for surrogate babies, with all the negative consequences identified by the Iona Institute.

Sex-Selection Abortions

Senator Blackburn of Tennessee makes some points about gender-based abortions.  A bill to ban such abortions was voted on today in the House and failed to pass.  (Our/my own Rep. Carolyn Maloney voted against the bill. No surprise.).  Those who support abortion on demand as part of  'reproductive choice' and a woman's 'right to choose' are in the sticky position of having to support this very anti-woman, anti-female act.   That includes our president, Barack Obama, though his position seems to be still 'evolving.'  The prevalence of this practice was discussed here, though such abortions only went on in far-away places like India and China.  Now modern feminism has brought the practice to us.

March for Life 2012

Homily of Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan

7:30 a.m., Monday, January 23, 2012

Closing Mass of the National Prayer Vigil for Life

Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

You have just spent the night in your mother’s homes!

You have “kept vigil” that cherished tradition so frequently found in the Bible, and now we commence this somber anniversary her in our Mother’s home, our National Shrine, in the best possible way, through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I welcome all of you!
I whisper “good morning” to so many of you who have kept vigil here for the noble cause of life;
I thank you for the radiant inspiration you give all of us.

That radiant inspiration we need indeed as we persevere in this now two-score years of promoting a recovery of the culture of life gravely threatened by unlimited abortion.

Simply put, we are often tempted to give up hope that we can even turn it around.

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus mentions some mysterious “unforgiveable sin against the Holy Spirit.” What is it?

Wise men and women, saints and scholars, tell us that Jesus is teaching that, really, the only unforgiveable sin…is to believe that there is any sin which cannot be forgiven, that God’s mercy is limited.

Nope! God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s power is unlimited! There is no evil, no horror, no sin that is exempt from the healing rays of His grace.

Not even the horrors of the culture of death!

From a human point of view, we may be tempted to surrender;

When our government places conception, pregnancy and birth under the “Center for Disease Control”;

When chemically blocking conception or aborting the baby in the womb is considered a “right” to be subsidized by others who abhor it;

When the ability of feeding, housing, and healing the struggling of the world is curtailed and impeded if one does not also help women abort their babies;

One can hardly be faulted for being tempted to the “sin against the Holy Spirit” and just consider all as lost.

Not us! Not for thousands who have stayed up all night in prayer in this, the home of a pregnant woman;

Not for hundreds of thousands who will march today with the words of “We Shall Overcome” ringing in our ears;

Not for those of us who whisper “Thanks be to God” as we behold untold numbers of young people with passion for the Culture of Life, those of us old enough to recall thirty-nine years ago when sophisticated voices told us that the “pro-life movement” was just a momentary fad that would soon crash upon the shores of a “brave new world.” We veterans who now smile as the pro-life cause is acknowledged as today’s premiere civil rights movement still, in spite of editorial pages and chic tsk-tsk the most pivotal, burning issue on the campaign trail.

Yes, like David in our reading from God’s word this morning, the pro-life movement has been dismissed by the Goliath of the well-oiled, well-inked, glitterati-crowded pro-abortion one…. But, Goliath the Giant didn’t win, did he? Trusting, shrewd,
Faithful, confident, energetic little David did!

Thank you, David…for the radiant inspiration you give us!

Here is Cardinal Di Nardo's homily from the Sunday evening before the March.

Beatification for the Ulma Family

I'm very late with this.  For several years, maybe 7 or 8, I've saved a newspaper clipping about Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma from the village of Markowa in Poland.  They and their seven children, the seventh being Wiktoria's unborn child in the womb, were murdered by the Nazis for harboring Jews.  The clipping I saved was brief in content, no more than a paragraph, but it left such an impression that it's never seemed quite right to throw it away.  

It would have been bad enough for the husband and wife to have been shot, but seven young children from ages 7 to 18 months?  How can one even begin to understand what it means to do that?    The unspeakably inhumane actions of the Germans are spelled out further in this Zenit article from earlier this year.   The beatification of the Ulma Family was, I believe, carried out in May of this year.

Pope Benedict Comments on Condoms

As early as Saturday afternoon CBS News was reporting that the Pope, in a Vatican letter, had approved the use of condoms. Surprise.

American Papist usually has the best coverage of such matters and points out that the Pope's comment about condoms is, first of all, part of a book-length interview to be considered within a larger context, and, second, that the Italian news media leaked portions of the interview.

It seems that the Pope didn't approve the use of condoms either in general or as a way to combat AIDS and he didn't make his remarks as part of official Church teaching. Instead he was responding to the interviewer's comments about AIDS in Africa. The Pope was re-stating that the Catholic Church helps those who suffer from AIDS "up close and concretely." He pointed out that the Church " does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering." Naturally, CBS News didn't report any of that. Nor did they report the Pope's remarks on how the use of condoms feeds into the root problems of sex divorced from love and the "banalization of sexuality."

Here is the relevant passage and what the Pope actually said in the interview:

On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on AIDs once again became the target of media criticism.Twenty-five percent of all AIDs victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me whythe Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on AIDs. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does
more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim. Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many AIDs victims, especially children with AIDs.

I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering. In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.

As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization
of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

There may be a basis in the case ofsome individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of
responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

Still, as one clever reader points out, one wishes the Pope had just responded to that last question with a simple 'no.' But Pope Benedict isn't a simple person and these aren't simple times, so we're once again left to slug this out with the mainstream media and other Catholic bashers.

Saints and Heroes

Another beatification? Another saint? No sooner has one luminary of the Church been beatified--John Henry Newman--than another comes around. Having just returned from Our Saviour parish after the dedication of a new shrine (the first in the U.S.!) to the recently beatified Cardinal Newman, I chanced to read about the impending beatification of an Italian girl named Chiara Badano who liked to skate, dance and play tennis. What would there be about a seemingly normal teen that could possibly warrant her beatification?

At 17, Chiara was diagnosed with bone cancer and underwent chemotherapy, hospitalizations, unsuccessful surgery resulting in an inability to walk and, finally, months of pain before her untimely demise. On the one hand, there's the intellectual giant John Henry Newman and on the other a teen suffering from cancer, and both may be destined for sainthood. Hmm. There are, apparently, many ways to be "images of Christ." Chiara, with a devotion to and love of Christ, consciously decided, according to an incident related by her mother, to take up her cross and fully embrace her suffering as she prepared to "meet Jesus." Chiara died "happy" just a few weeks shy of her nineteenth birthday with the instruction to her mother that she repeat three times that Chiara is now "seeing Jesus." There is more about Chiara's beatification here.

At the same time, there was awarded the other day a Medal of Honor to Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger for his heroism in Laos in March of 1968. With his crew lying dead and wounded around him, he "single-handedly held off the enemy with an M-16, while simultaneously directing air strikes into the area and calling for air rescue." As if that wasn't enough, he then proceeded, in the line of enemy fire, to lift not one, but three of his wounded crew into helicopter slings. Need it be said that as Etchberger was himself lifted into the helicopter, he was fatally wounded.

At first glance, Chiara and Chief Etchberger seem to have about as much in common as do Chiara and Blessed John Henry Newman. But reading the story of the Italian teen on one day called to mind reading the story of the soldier from just days before. Here are unusually courageous acts from otherwise usual people as they are confronted with danger, death and pain. They show a virtuous spirit that, once triggered, indomitably persists in being virtuous not only once or for a moment, but repeatedly and regardless of the last moment. Here are two who gave a somewhat unfathomable and conscious "yes" to personal sacrifice, the possibility of which, as a soldier, Etchberger was certainly quite aware and something Chiara certainly understood as her disease advanced.

Some time ago, I heard a talk by a rabbi who spoke, among other things, about the death of his parents in a concentration camp. The details of his story are a bit fuzzy now, but while his parents were carted off to a hideous end, his own boyhood was spared due to the heroic acts of some courageous individuals who looked after him. The rabbi gazed out at those of us in the audience and anticipated, as he probably had many times before, the questions that were on our minds, namely, Are you bitter, angry, vengeful? Are you guilt-ridden over your own survival? and Why are you so calm and reasonable?

To the unasked questions, the rabbi answered very matter of factly that he had learned quite early in life that human beings are--as he waved one hand to one side--capable of great evil and--as he gestured with his other hand to his other side--capable of great good. It's not pleasant to dwell on the suffering of a dying girl, the thoughts of a soldier under enemy fire, or the fears of those hiding a young Jewish boy orphaned by the Nazis. But it is pleasant after a fashion to dwell on their actions in the face of fear and danger as a reminder of the capability for great good that was placed within all of us.

Dolan Announces National Prayer Campaign for Life

Our own Archbishop Timothy Dolan introduced a National Prayer Campaign For Life on May 3rd upon the 10th anniversary of the passing of John Cardinal O’Connor. Inspiration for this campaign comes from both Cardinal O'Connor, a passionate champion of the unborn and the founder of the Sisters of Life, as well as from Pope John Paul II. Sister Lucy of the Sisters of Life writes,

Please join us in praying this prayer every day and give it to others–we are hoping that it spreads throughout our nation so that a Culture of Life may be fully restored!

Eternal Father, Source of Life,
strengthen us with your Holy Spirit
to receive the abundance of life you have promised.
Open our hearts to see and desire
the beauty of your plan for life and love.
Make our love generous and self-giving so that we may be blessed with joy.
Grant us great trust in your mercy.
Forgive us for not receiving your gift of life
and heal us from the effects of the culture of death.
Instill in us and all people reverence for every human life.
Inspire and protect our efforts on behalf of those most vulnerable
especially the unborn, the sick and the elderly.
We ask this in the Name of Jesus,
who by His Cross makes all things new. Amen.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Read more about the campaign at http://www.nationalprayerforlife.org/

The Manhattan Declaration

I received an e-mail from the Manhattan Declaration a while ago--well, not just me of course, but me and all those who signed their petition-- in which they write about their new website and the fortuitousness of their formation precisely at a time when such an organization is sorely needed, referring to the unwelcome passage of Obama's punitive healthcare package. They write,

We are reminded by this legislation that we must redouble our efforts. We must equip ourselves to defend winsomely the truth in the public square.

Defend "winsomely"? I had to look that one up. To me 'winsome' always brought to mind a pretty, innocent lass or a longing, kind of lonely look. Lo and behold, the Manhattan Declaration founders are reminding us to defend the truth cheerfully,without rancor, to be happy soldiers while battling the lies and moral depravity of the progressives and liberals who have slipped into power with the help of society's useful idiots.

Oops. Now that hardly sounds cheerful, but I'm feeling a blow to the ego by discovering that I never knew what the word 'winsome' meant in the first place, and, I'm also a bit piqued at being reminded that I need to be cheery not only when discussing the spring weather but also when confronted with the worldview of liberal friends, family and neighbors. Alas. It may be too late for the latter in some cases.

Prayer and Sacrifice to Defeat ObamaCare

Yesterday, the Sisters of Life sent out an e-mail to those of us on their list, inviting any and all of us to join them in prayer and fasting concerning Obama's health care bill. In the words of Mother Agnes Mary, the Sisters will be praying through the night "begging the Lord of Life to protect our nation from the onslaught of abortion and from the marginalizing of Christians in the public square by denying us the right to act on our conscience." She concludes her letter by writing, "May we support the weak, encourage the faint-hearted, and console the sorrowing by our prayers and sacrifices. May the Lord of all be glorified."

Anti-Life Obama

Barack Obama continues to push a culture of death. Now clinics on military posts are required to distribute Plan B, also called the morning after pill, at U.S. military hospitals both domestic and international. The morning after pill, an abortifacient, means that even military personnel who oppose abortion will be required to dispense it. Whereas President Bush blocked distribution of the drug, Obama has not. A spokesperson for NARAL calls it a 'tragedy' that military women have been denied the pill and she applauds 'experts' for 'standing up for' military women. A twisted perspective to say the least.

Obama is the president who supposedly is committed to reducing the need for abortion. If he were serious about this commitment, he would be promoting the many pregnancy resource centers around the country that support and counsel pregnant women to avoid abortion. Not only does Obama not promote these centers, his stance on abortion creates a climate that promotes threatening to de-fund them with the 'Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act.' (Note that my district's House representative Carolyn Maloney is among those leading the de-funding charge.)

Obama seems to always choose measures that destroy life rather than measures that will preserve it.

Tim Tebow and His Super Bowl Ad

Yesterday, American Thinker published this short piece that I wrote on the upcoming Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad. With no TV, I listen to a lot of talk radio and thought it curious that such disparate talk-show hosts as Rush Limbaugh on the one hand and Mike Francesa on the other mentioned the Tebow ad. Part of Rush's showmanship is his claim to be the all-knowing, always-ahead-of-the-curve spokesman for relevant issues. I find he's always a little behind on the social issues like abortion and gay marriage, and his comments on the Tebow ad and so-called pro-choice women were just that, though he was accurate. As for Mike Francesa, he's almost always level-headed when he dips into subjects other than sports. (His interviews are always good, too!)

Imagine

Last year's March for Life occurred just two days after Barack Obama's inauguration, and the effects of Obamamania were still evident in the nation's capital as marchers assembled for the walk to the Supreme Court building. In anticipation of tomorrow's 37th anniversary of the passage of Roe v. Wade and this year's march, here's a video that made the rounds last year, but is always timely, I think.

U.S. Bishops

It's encouraging to see the U.S. bishops put their faith into action and give some life to one of those Top Ten Reasons for Hope as they make headway with their bulletin insert on abortion funding in health care. Even our local liberal parish included the information requested by the bishops and discussed here.

Perhaps the information will be a gentle reminder to those 54% of American Catholic Obama supporters that they voted not only for the most "pro-abortion president in U.S. history," but for a president who stands in contradiction to one of the most fundamental teachings of the Catholic faith.

Transgenders in the News

Transgenders have been a topic not only here but in the national news as well. President Obama has appointed a transgender woman, Amanda Simpson, to be the Senior Technical Adviser to the Commerce Department. A transgender appointee, another reason for hope!

What is a transgender exactly? According to the American Psychological Association, transgender is

an umbrella term used to describe people whose gender identity (sense of themselves as male or female) or gender expression differs from that usually associated with their birth sex. Many transgender people live part-time or full-time as members of the other gender. Broadly speaking, anyone whose identity, appearance, or behavior falls outside of conventional gender norms can be described as transgender. However, not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender-atypical will identify as a transgender person.

Good old Wikipedia says that

transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them.

And just to mix it all up a little more, I learned from gay panelists at various UN conferences last year that there is also such a thing as "gender non-conforming behavior." This refers to men or women who don't have "a gay or lesbian identity but who have characteristics which don't conform to gender stereotypes." As one panelist explained, a gender non-conforming man, for example, might enjoy wearing lipstick (but, I guess, he still considers himself a man?). The head spins. At least the rational one does.

Trying to ply the waters of LGBTI terminology is to become lost in an upside-down world where, if women can be men and men can be women, the sun must surely rise in the west and set in the east on occasion. It is the world of rebellious angels who refuse to accept life as God created it just as they refuse to accept God himself. This world where biology is re-defined and human sexuality is distorted is a world of miserable chaos.

Regardless of what the LGBTI and the various 'trans' communities may say, our gender is determined by our biology however problematic that may be to some souls, and, certainly there are such troubled souls who suffer with questions about their sexuality. They are people endlessly deserving of understanding and counsel. But neither they nor society as a whole is served when we have among us those who insist on re-defining the abnormal as normal.

USCCB Continues to Oppose Abortion Funding in Health Care Reform

Speaking of bishops with backbone (referring to my 'Top Ten Reasons for Hope' on December 31st), the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) continues to urge Catholic parishioners nationwide to oppose all health care reform that funds abortion as the House and Senate attempt to merge their two versions of the health care bill. In addition, the U.S. bishops continue to call for a bulletin insert, which you can read here, to be distributed nationwide in all parishes. They are also asking that announcements be made from the pulpit to draw attention to the bulletin insert.

All of that is pretty significant, though it's too bad that the USCCB doesn't oppose Obama's push for nationalized health care overall.

The Manhattan Declaration

A friend of mine, let's call her Friend No. 1, maintains that when all is said and done, the major divisions in our modern day society eventually boil down to abortion. Which side are you on. On the other hand, another friend, let's call her Friend No. 2, dismisses as folly the notion that anyone cares about abortion, and she scoffs at the suggestion that presidential elections would ever be won or lost over the rights of the pre-born.

I think Friend No. 1 is daily being proven true. If there is to be a showdown, it's not the war in Afghanistan, the economy or Climategate that may ultimately cause a rift between friends and family. Rather, what divides our society are the culture wars as defined by the three issues identified in the Manhattan Declaration: the sanctity of life, the dignity of marriage as between one man and one woman and the matter of conscience rights and religious liberty. In fact, I'd go yet a step further than Friend No. 1 and say that, ultimately, everything boils down to whether or not you are a relativist. Do you believe in objective truth, God's Truth, as opposed to the shifting flights of fancy that masquerade as truth in our post-modern American culture.

The Manhattan Declaration comes out boldly and identifies Truth as " Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life." It is, needless to say, a Christian document, its full title being the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience. It is a manifesto of sorts, a position paper by Christians and for Christians, regardless of denomination, to "proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good." It is a "call to discipleship" and action if necessary. Its drafters are Professor Robert George of Princeton University, Professor Timothy George of Samford University and Chuck Colson, former Nixon administration Special Counsel who now heads the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. To date the declaration has 275,792 signers, and among the list of religious and public leaders who have signed on is our own Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

The Manhattan Declaration is a kind of mission statement and, if a mission statement defines who you are and who you aren't, it also separates you from others and sets your boundaries as well as your reach. The Manhattan Declaration could be said to draw a line in the sand between them and us, between a culture of death and a culture of life or between a culture of secularism and a culture of faith, or, a culture of materialism and a culture that upholds Man as created by God in God's image. The declaration clearly lays out and supports (with meaty analysis) a position about the unborn, marriage and religious liberty, making it easy, if not necessary, to read the document and be either wholly for or wholly against. No politically correct nuance or tolerant agree-to-disagree discussion. No PC hiding behind cheap slogans and throw-away jargon about meeting half-way and finding common ground when there really is none. While this may seem unnecessarily bold and harsh, it is actually to society's benefit to clarify what separates us even if it isn't immediately possible to bridge the rift.

Common Ground on Life Issues?

There may be, among the readers of this humble blog, if indeed you readers are out there, those who think that during his recent commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, Barack Obama posed a genuine invitation to dialogue about differences of opinion on the right to life. During the address, Obama suggested that the two sides work through differences with open hearts and minds and fair-minded words. Well, here is a video link to just such a discussion between two Catholic pro-lifers-- Professor Doug Kmiec, who is an Obama supporter and Professor Robert George, who is not an Obama supporter. Their topic is 'The Obama Administration and the Sanctity of Human Life; Is There Common Ground on Life Issues?'

Doug Kmiec, a Catholic, is Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Kmiec managed to wrest from Catholic teaching a justification for Catholics to abandon one of the central tenets of their faith in order to vote for Obama and his record of anti-life policies.

Robert George, also a pro-life Catholic, is Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and is the director of Princeton's James Madison Program for American Ideals and Institutions. He was also a member of George Bush's Council on Bioethics.

The discussion runs for about an hour and a twenty minutes, but the time flies, particularly when Professor George takes the podium. Kmiec and George each speak for about twenty minutes (with Kmiec going first) and then follows a question and answer period moderated by Mary Ann Glendon, law professor at Harvard and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See.

I think that 'casuistry' might be the right word to describe Kmiec's approach to the matter of Obama and abortion. Kmiec first describes Obama as everything he isn't, then comments on the importance of 'intent' and then talks about Obama's committment to limit, not abortion itself, but the conditions which might lead to abortion.

Professor George begins his remarks by noting that while speaking so judiciously at Notre Dame of open hearts and minds, Obama also said that 'the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.' (So much for dialoguing with President Obama!) Professor George points out that for Obama, abortion is no more objectionable than knee surgery, that is, our president is not even 'personally opposed' to killing the unborn and in fact finds it an acceptable alternative to the 'punishment' of having a baby.

But, my notes are a poor substitute for the real thing. So, watch, listen and comment, if you will. http://digitalmedia.cua.edu//calendar/event_dsp.cfm?event=4696