Is McCain Pro-Life?

The Catholic Vote

Pope John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae:

"To the Bishops Priests and Deacons Men and Women religious lay Faithful and all People of Good Will on the Value and Inviolability of Human Life (03/25/1995):

73. Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. From the very beginnings of the Church, the apostolic preaching reminded Christians of their duty to obey legitimately constituted public authorities (cf. Rom 13:1-7; 1 Pet 2:13-14), but at the same time it firmly warned that "we must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

- Pope John Paul II (Evangelium vitae, 1995)

". . . In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to 'take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it'[98]".

- Pope John Paul II (Evangelium vitae, 1995)

Democrats Can't Accept the Finally Tough Questions Without Being Offended

Assuming the media was in their own back pocket, Joe Biden is finally asked some tough questions. Then the Obama campaign canceled all future scheduled interviews saying: "This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign, according to an Orlando Sentinel blog.



Like Joe the Plumber, this reporter is going to be attacked and the media will try to destroy her. Send her your support: barbara.west@wftv.com

What is Abortion?

From Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary and used with permission on Catholic Culture, the Church answers and defines abortion. Excerpts include:

"Direct abortion is any destruction of the product of human conception, whether before or after implantation in the womb. A direct abortion is one that is intended either as an end in itself or as a means to an end. As a willful attack on unborn human life, no matter what the motive, direct abortion is always a grave objective evil.

. . . Abortion has been condemned by the Church since apostolic times. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, composed before A.D. 100, told the faithful "You shall not procure abortion. You shall not destroy a newborn child" (II, 2). Direct abortion and infanticide were from the beginning placed on the same level of malice."

If it's not a baby, then she's not pregnant.

"Christian" Barack's Double Talk vs. Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and Alan Keyes' Straight Talk

Mother Teresa on abortion:

"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?"

- Mother Teresa (February 3, 1994 - National Prayer Breakfast in Washington attended by then President Bill Clinton and the First Lady)

Pope John Paul II:

"If, indeed, everyone has the mission and responsibility of acknowledging the personal dignity of every human being and of defending the right to life, some lay faithful are given a particular title to this task: such as parents, teachers, health care workers and the many who hold economic and political power."

- Pope John Paul II (Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici December 30, 1988)

Pope John Paul II:

"Today, when many countries have seen the fall of ideologies which bound politics to a totalitarian conception of the world-Marxism being the foremost of these-there is no less grave a danger that the fundamental rights of the human person will be denied and that the religious yearnings which arise in the heart of every human being will be absorbed once again into politics This is the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life, and on a deeper level make the acknowledgement of truth impossible. Indeed, "if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism."(161)

- Pope John Paul II Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993)

Pope John Paul II:

"8. Dear friends, let us commit all our forces to defending the value of the family and respect for human life from the moment of conception. These are values which belong to the basic "grammar" of dialogue and human coexistence among peoples. I fervently hope that governments and national parliaments, international organizations and, in particular, the United Nations Organization will not lose sight of this truth. I ask all people of good will who believe in these values to join forces effectively so that the latter may prevail in daily life, in cultural trends and in the mass media, in political decisions and the laws of nations."

- Pope John Paul II: Address to the families (October 14, 2000)

Mother Teresa:

"Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."

- Mother Teresa (February 3, 1994)

Pope John Paul II:

"This task is the particular responsibility of civil leaders. Called to serve the people and the common good, they have a duty to make courageous choices in support of life, especially through legislative measures. In a democratic system, where laws and decisions are made on the basis of the consensus of many, the sense of personal responsibility in the consciences of individuals invested with authority may be weakened. But no one can ever renounce this responsibility, especially when he or she has a legislative or decision-making mandate, which calls that person to answer to God, to his or her own conscience and to the whole of society for choices which may be contrary to the common good. Although laws are not the only means of protecting human life, nevertheless they do play a very important and sometimes decisive role in influencing patterns of thought and behaviour. I repeat once more that a law which violates an innocent person's natural right to life is unjust and, as such, is not valid as a law. For this reason I urgently appeal once more to all political leaders not to pass laws which, by disregarding the dignity of the person, undermine the very fabric of society."

- Pope John Paul II Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae (March 25, 1995)

Mother Teresa:

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters" And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign."

- Mother Teresa (February 3, 1994 - National Prayer Breakfast in Washington attended by then President Bill Clinton and the First Lady)

Pope John Paul II:

"The Church well knows that it is difficult to mount an effective legal defence of life in pluralistic democracies, because of the presence of strong cultural currents with differing outlooks. At the same time, certain that moral truth cannot fail to make its presence deeply felt in every conscience, the Church encourages political leaders, starting with those who are Christians, not to give in, but to make those choices which, taking into account what is realistically attainable, will lead to the re- establishment of a just order in the defence and promotion of the value of life."

- Pope John Paul II Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae (March 25, 1995)

Pope John Paul II - The Catholic Vote and Abortion

From his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul explains the importance of voting pro-life:

To the Bishops Priests and Deacons Men and Women religious lay Faithful and all People of Good Will on the Value and Inviolabilityof Human Life (03/25/ 1995):

"In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to 'take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it'[98].

- Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Evangelium vitae, 1995)

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Declaration on Procured Abortion (November 18, 1974 - one year following Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court):

. . . These debates would be less grave were it not a question of human life, a primordial value, which must be protected and promoted. Everyone understands this, although many look for reasons, even against all evidence, to promote the use of abortion. . . The Church is too conscious of the fact that it belongs to her vocation to defend man against everything that could disintegrate or lessen his dignity to remain silent on such a topic. Because the Son of God became man, there is no man who is not His brother in humanity . . .

22. It must in any case be clearly understood that whatever may be laid down by civil law in this matter, man can never obey a law which is in itself immoral, and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the liceity of abortion. Nor can he take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it. Moreover, he may not collaborate in its application.

. . . Christ's Church has the fundamental solicitude of protecting and favoring life. She certainly thinks before all else of the life which Christ came to bring: "I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full" (Jn. 10:10). But life at all its levels comes from God, and bodily life is for man the indispensable beginning."

[98] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (18 November 1974), No. 22: AAS 66 (1974), 744.

The Sheer Hypocrisy of Liberalism

A book written by Tom Brokaw, Veteran reporter and NBC Nightly News anchor, entitled The Greatest Generation described that great American culture of the 1940's (born between 1901–1924) in which God, family, and country were the culture's inspiration to doing what is right even in difficult times. In his book, Tom Brokaw wrote, "this is the greatest generation any society has produced." In another page he points out,

". . . John and Peggy Assenzio were typical. When he came home, they simply resumed their life together. They loved each other. They wanted to have a family. They were faithful Catholics. They were true to the way they had been raised."

This was the Greatest Generation. Then came the Baby Boomers. This generation, born between between 1946 and 1964, was composed of, according to Wikipedia, two cohorts. The first (born from 1946 to 1954) championed the causes of anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women's movement, protests and riots, experimentation with various intoxicating recreational substances - these were identified by a survey of the Baby Boomers themselves (Wikipedia). The second cohort, also according to a survey of the Baby Boomers themselves, brought upon Nixon's resignation, the Cold War, the oil embargo, gasoline shortages, and whose key characteristics consisted of less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism (Wikipedia). About the Baby Boomers, Census Bureau deputy director Arthur Clausewitz said at a press conference,

". . . the curtain will at long last fall on what is regarded by many as the most odious generation America has ever produced . . . The selfishness that has been a hallmark of the Boomers will continue right up to the very end, as they force millions of younger Americans to devote an inordinate amount of time and resources to their care, bankrupting the Social Security system in the process."

Those in the past and present who claim to be 'advocates' and 'champions' of tolerance, free speech, and diversity are in fact against all three. They stand against others' freedoms when those others' opinions are not in complete mind-brick-lock-step with theirs. They only demand these freedoms when they are outnumbered against a Greatest Generation, as they did in the 1960's, but when their numbers rise to form a gang, they completely suppress in others the very same freedoms they demanded for themselves.

Take for example California's ruling that homeschooling is illegal. California did this because they do not have the monopoly on everybody's child in the public school system to indoctrinate them with their liberal ideas. Public school children are being taught things that have nothing to do with reading and arithmetic. Children are learning about Mitch and Hank living as gay partners when they should be learning the times tables. Liberals call this brainwashing 'open mindedness'. However, when parents pull their kids out of school and homeschool them, those same liberals teaching 'open mindedness' come down like a hammer on homeschool families and abuse their Baby Boomer power to declare homeschooling illegal. Sheer hypocrisy.

Take also for example, the absurd claim by the 9th Circuit Court that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it contains the words "under God". This phrase in no way establishes a religion whatsoever.* Also take the attempt to mint our coins without the expression 'In God We Trust'. Again an unfounded accusation by the 'tolerant' left that this somehow establishes a religion. What religion can possibly be established with this phrase?

Liberals just love to cite science as its ultimate Truth. They forget one thing: Science is God's creation, not theirs. They'll use climate change to intrude into American lives depriving farmers of their much needed water to favor a useless fish, carbon taxes, bringing down the wood production industry, outrageous fishing and hunting regulations, etc. What the Greatest Generation took for granted and held as common knowledge is being stripped away and replaced with excessive regulation under the guise of liberality and 'responsibility'. These Marxist copouts are not the ideals the Greatest Generation fought to preserve. The sky will not fall if Johnny hikes to his favorite fishing spot to fish a pond that has a rare turtle. The ecosystem will not collapse if the local sawmill remains open. The earth will not grind to a halt upon its axes if we don't pay extra fines to recycle.

Speaking of science; how hypocritical is it to make into policy the aborting of children in the womb of its mother straight through the last trimester of development. Liberals claim that the child is not a human. Even with our technological advancement of ultrasound video imagery, liberals still refuse to acknowledge a unique living human being in the womb. They claim science as their ultimate Truth yet throw out science when it's right in their face, black and white, in video imagery. They are either on drugs or their prejudice is blinding them from the truth. Sheer hypocrisy.

Also take for example cyber-bullying in forums and on pro-life or Christian websites. Liberals gang-attack using uncivil personal slanders, physical threats, and outright barbaric behavior towards their fellow Americans who happen to hold an opinion other than theirs. I cannot recall a single conservative person who ever mass-attacked or even solo-attacked a personal blog with the malice that some 'open minded' liberals have resorted to. So much for diversity.

Liberals consider themselves the 'enlightened ones' yet their verbal attacks lack civility, consist of distortions, red-herrings, atheistic drive, and worse yet, presented under the banner of 'freedom to choose'. Unadulterated double talk. Their intent is not the flower child mantra of 'live and let live' but rather, 'misery loves company'. They will not stop until everybody is a perfect clone of their sad miserable selves. This is their idea of freedom, diversity, and tolerance. This is their sheer hypocrisy and it is rather sad.

Another example is the media. Hollywood consistently attempts to drive those with religious beliefs out of society by portraying them as seething-with-hate-fanatics. Hollywood's seething hatred of religion and God is clear. Movies like the DaVinci Code, Priest, The Last Temptation of Christ, etc. are outright attacks on God and His Church. In the liberal attempt to rid the world of their imagined 'yoke' of religion and imagined 'constraints' of the Ten Commandments, they strive to replace the notion of God and virtue with real yokes and real constraints. Their model is a communist regime that repeats Karl Marx's communist view that "religion is the opiate of the people." Hollywood must brainwash their audience with new movies to replace oldies of the Greatest Generation's cinematic creations such as The Bells of St. Mary's, Going My Way, Come to the Stable, etc. To do this, Hollywood creates movies that glamorize decadent behavior as mainstream and acceptable in movies like Sex and the City, Religulous, Brokeback Mountain, Dogma, and others that depict decadence as acceptable and religion as foolishness. A far cry from our Greatest Generation.

The liberal utopia of a culture without God can only come true if a dictatorship is in place. The bumper stickers we often see saying "Free Tibet" attempts to reclaim religious liberty. However, those same slogans can be applied to America with the American left's persecution of Christians that is becoming another Tibet. This again is their sheer hypocrisy.

Liberals repeatedly cite the 1940's culture as their enemy model. The family, consisting of father and mother with children living together in a harmonic Christian home is the liberals' idea of hell. Liberals work to tear down all that is good and holy in order to claim victory - not over the 1940's culture, but victory over God Himself Who was the inspiration for all that was good in the past. The Greatest Generation, although not perfect, was simply a product of being true to their beliefs, as Tom Brokaw wrote above. A model for our culture to once again embrace with Christianity and God at its core. This is not the future envisioned by liberal Baby Boomers.

Brown University history professor A. Thomas Raymond said. "The era-defining flower children of the '60s, hedonistic disco-goers of the '70s, BMW-driving yuppies of the '80s and graying private-investor homeowner parents of the '90s all have one thing in common: They're all Boomers." "It takes a staggering amount of effort to keep oneself the focus of an entire society for one decade, much less four, but the Boomers somehow pulled it off," Raymond continued. "Thankfully, though, their reign will soon come to an end . . ." (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29261)

However, the damage has been done. The children of the Baby Boomers have been trained well. In fact, the modern liberals today have far less tolerance of diversity, free speech, and freedom than their Baby Boomer parents. They are ratcheting up their rhetoric and pounding their bongo war drums for the coming persecution of Christianity. This persecution is already underway by the older cohort who, through some crack (because they certainly lack any political tact, a spirit of service, skill, or patriotism), have dug into local and national political positions like a parasitic tick. They refuse to leave at any cost and, like a tick, regurgitate their disease into their host - the country.

Everything is in place to insert the real yoke of suppression, impose the religion of secular humansim, and enforce it in a way that can only be done with an iron fist. Nobody would willingly embrace such insanity. The only way it will be implemented widespread across our country is for the masses to lose their peace of soul. This occurs when they kill their conscience and convince themselves that God doesn't exist and that religion is a burdensome fantasy.

However, to rid themselves of God and religion would require replacing them with their notion of order. This will be their dictatorship of secularism. American secular humanists wish to impose upon America Karl Marx's opinion that "the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness." This is not the freedoms the Greatest Generation fought the Second World War for. This is not the America envisioned by our founding fathers. This is not the America Tom Brokaw described in his book. Secular humanists are too often willing to forget that the Constitution promises "Freedom OF religion" - a constitutionally guaranteed right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment, not "Freedom FROM religion."*

The liberal utopia of America is a nightmarish place that this country has never trodden. Ariel Durant who was nominated as "Woman of the Year" by the Los Angeles Times, said:

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” - Ariel Durant (1898-1981)

America's next generation can quite possibly be called the Last Generation.

*(On a side note, Thomas Jefferson's note of 'separation of church and state' cited by so many secularists to quell religious freedom is referencing the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. It states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". The clause was a reaction to the Church of England, established as the official church of England and some of the colonies, during the colonial era and protects the United States from officially choosing a religion as its establishment such as the Church of England's Anglican Communion, Sharia Law, etc.).

Brokaw, Tom. 1998. The Greatest Generation. Random House 1st Edition, November 30, 1998, p. 238.