Words of Advice for Tim Kaine from the Late Bishop Patrick Ahern

 

As a young college seminarian, I was out to dinner one night in the mid 1980’s with New York Auxiliary Bishop, Patrick Ahern. I questioned whether NY Governor Mario Cuomo was in a no-win position regarding abortion and his fight with Cardinal O’Connor. This wonderful old bishop walked me down the road of truth with grace and patience. His words about Cuomo apply equally to Kaine. So, Tim Kaine, here is a rebuke from beyond the grave of a true saint.

You are a hypocrite, and your every action in politics betrays your hypocrisy regarding abortion. All American citizens are free to work within our constitutional system to effect changes based upon their private beliefs. It matters not whether those beliefs arise from a religiously informed view, or the Natural Law embraced by our Founding Fathers.

As a governor, you have enjoyed a position most Americans could only dream of. You have been uniquely positioned to work from within the political establishment to effect change regarding abortion. What have you done?

Have you used the bully pulpit of the Governor to decry abortion?

Have you called for a Constitutional Amendment abolishing this barbarism that has claimed 60 million American lives, 20 million of whom were black?

How is it that you can be personally opposed to a procedure that tears a baby apart while alive, or scorches them with saline solution, and not seek to effect a change in our laws?

How can you be so personally opposed to abortion and remain so silent?

Worse, how can you be so personally opposed and accept being the running mate for the most rabidly pro-abortion candidate in US history, save the current occupant of the White House?

In truth, you have done nothing to redeem your party, or yourself, to assuage the nation of the blood that flows like a river.

When you meet your God at the last, He will remind you of the words of St. James in chapter 2 of his New Testament letter:

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead… You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

 

And so it is with the faith of all such politicians who pay lip-service to their faith, while actively promoting the machinery of government that funds abortionists, funds abortion through Medicaid, forces churches to pay for abortion through health insurance, and worst of all…

Decries the other party for condemning abortion, accusing them of waging war on women. Where have you been, Governor?

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that the last words the damned will hear from Him are:

“For whenever you neglected to do this for the least of these, my brothers, you neglected to do it for me.”

If you will not hear it from your bishops, Governor Kaine, you had better heed the words of Jesus and James. No real Catholic can get away with such a vacuous argument on abortion.

A saintly bishop defeated that one thirty years ago.

 

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Presidential Politics: Idolatry Masquerading as Conscience

The following is a post I made on FaceBook earlier today. It speaks for itself.

I’m sure the following will cause many to unfriend me. So be it.

No, Trump didn’t mention abortion. Do I wish that he had? I’m at the stage in life where I think it doesn’t matter. All the other Republicans mention abortion and most do nothing once they get into office. Reagan was willing to go to bat for a Constitutional Amendment that included a rape clause. This split the pro-life community so badly that Reagan walked away. At least 40 million humans would be with us today had such an amendment passed, and in the intervening years we could have been working to save the rest not covered in the initial amendment.

There is such a thing as making an idol of one’s conscience and blinding oneself to the wealth of good that can be done, all because one cannot get 100% of what their conscience demanded. Rather than see the 99 babies saved, if they can’t have 100, they’ll stand on conscience and reject the offer of the lives of the 99.

That’s not fidelity.

That’s idolatry.

Even Lincoln knew he couldn’t get everything he wanted for slaves in one Amendment, so he settled for abolishing slavery in the 13th Amendment, realizing that citizenship would have to wait for a later day. It came with the 14th Amendment.

In this election, either Trump or Clinton will be elected. We are called to limit evil and promote as much good as we can. After the past 8 years, there is little doubt what a Clinton Presidency will mean. The Democrats decided to elect a Messiah eight years ago, and it was a disaster. Now conservative intellectuals are making the same mistake in rejecting Trump and sitting it out.
We elect humans, with all of their frailties, not angels or saints. Trump wouldn’t have been my first, fifth, or tenth choice. But Trump at his worst is orders of magnitude better than Clinton at her best.

We are also not electing a king. We need to elect people to Congress who will actually use the system of checks and balances at their disposal to rein in whomever gets elected. So, to those who make the perfect the enemy of the good, I say that’s the litmus test for turning conscience into an idol.

Let the unfriending begin

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