Buildings and Bridges

Buildings and bridges
are made to bend in the wind
to withstand the world,
that's what it takes
All that steel and stone
is no match for the air, my friend
what doesn't bend breaks
what doesn't bend breaks

Buildings & Bridges – Ani DiFranco

I went to visit my parents a week after the election. My dad and I got into an argument that virtually escalated into a shouting match. My parents are devout Catholics and wanted McCain to win for the simple reason that he would have dissolved Roe v. Wade. But even if McCain had won and followed through with that, it still would have been up to the states to decide their own laws with regards to abortion.

I’ve covered this topic before and have gotten hit-and-run comments from someone who has basically shouted YOU HATE BABIES! YOU HATE LIFE! SINNER! SINNER! SINNER! …and then ran away and could not defend their stance further. And that’s fine. I used to be on the other end of the rope and think that, too. Then I grew up and started using the brain the Good Lord has blessed me with. It has been said: Lower your voice and strengthen your argument. So, everyone quiet down and listen.

This article causes me to roll my ex-Catholic eyes. Bishop Daniel Conlon is quoted as saying "It's a matter of absolutes." I have a big problem with absolutism, which I addressed in a previous entry - http://craftingtheschism.blogspot.com/2007/09/8th-deadly-sin-absolutism.html - You can’t lump all abortion cases into the same basket and declare it 100% outlawed. No one likes abortion. No one is PRO abortion. No one grows up thinking, yeah, I’m really psyched for this abortion! No one is happy about it. But it is necessary for some.

The loudest picketers of this debate are celibate men. That baffles me. Be a woman. Get raped. Get incestuously raped, even. End up pregnant. Then see how you feel about the untruth that was planted in you through violence. See how tough it is to make that decision. You walk a mile in a woman’s shoes that has had to make that decision and suddenly you have a hard time being judge and jury.

To these Catholics the unborn are decidedly more important than those who are already here. I’ve covered this before. Many fighting to outlaw abortion in every single way shape and form are somehow serenely OK with the American occupation and involvement in an unjust war in Iraq where innocent children and babies are obliterated DAILY. Through ignoring and not fighting this issue as hard as they push against abortion, they are imminently advertising that they are at peace with human collateral damage. They just choose to turn a blind eye to that violence, after all, those Iraqis are not Christian, right, so who cares? This seems to be the attitude and if it is not, someone prove me wrong. They’re more absorbed by fighting for potential life than existing lives. These are the same people who think unbaptized babies will be floating around in Limbo (purgatory) separated from God. Yeah, because unbaptized babies who die have SO much sin on their souls to warrant being separated from an all-loving God. Sheesh, gimme a break. Stop your elitist nonsense and look at these situations through the eyes of a loving God, for Christ’s sake!

The separation of Church and State is so necessary… but the cooperation of the religious sectors is also necessary. The Catholic Church is rather adversarial in their attitude and attempts at influencing the upcoming administration. The attitude towards anyone who has had or is considering an abortion is unadulterated venom and vitriol, not compassion and love. Christians are supposed to be all about compassion and love, but their hypocrisy runs rampant and their horns start to show.

Is it surprising that the Church offers no talk or solutions for means and methods to eliminating the situations that would call for abortion in the first place? Their answer is another ridiculous “absolute”: ABSTINENCE. This method obviously DOES NOT WORK: God programmed our bodies to want to have sex. And God’s technical influence trumps this unreasonable request and nature proves this over and over and over again.

Obama has not even taken office yet and these bishops are swarming like bureaucratic vultures. The Church certainly is not approaching the situation with any sort gentleness or grace like Jesus would have done. Then again, I find the actions of the Church to be quite far from the way Jesus would have conducted things.

The one semi-voice of reason in this article is a woman, Sister Jamie Phelps, emphasizes that the voters have to weigh the whole range of issues for the preservation of life. Most Typical Catholics do not. They pick abortion as their main issue; put their blinders on and to hell with everything else. They ignore the big picture and refuse to consider the holistic repercussions of voting based on a single issue out of many that affect human life. This is not the way of the spiritual thinker and I absolutely do not think this is how Jesus would have approached the ballot.

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Catholic bishops plan to forcefully confront Obama
By Manya Brachear – Chicago Tribune staff reporter
8:38 PM CST, November 11, 2008 - BALTIMORE

In a direct challenge to President-elect Barack Obama, America's Roman Catholic bishops vowed on Tuesday to accept no compromise for the sake of national unity until there is legal protection for the unborn. About 300 bishops, gathered in Baltimore for their national meeting, adopted a formal blessing for a child in the womb and advised Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, president of the conference, as he began drafting a statement from the bishops to the incoming Obama administration. That document will call on the administration and Catholics who supported Obama to work to outlaw abortion. "This is not a matter of political compromise or a matter of finding some way of common ground," said Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio. "It's a matter of absolutes." The bishops, long one of the leading political forces against abortion, spent the first part of Tuesday behind closed doors reportedly debating the merits of "Faithful Citizenship," a nuanced guide for Catholic voters issued last November. Though the document made clear that "the direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many," it also advised Catholics to weigh issues like poverty, war, the environment and human rights when choosing candidates. But some bishops said they were surprised to see Catholics cite the document as justification for selecting candidates--like Obama--who support abortion rights. A slim majority of the nation's Catholics voted for the Democratic candidate. Several bishops said that Catholics could not in good conscience vote for a candidate who favored abortion rights after Obama pledged to pass legislation that would overturn state's restrictions on abortion such as late-term abortion bans and requirements of parental consent. "Any one of us here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow--die tomorrow!--to bring about the end of abortion," said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis. Bishops Thomas Paprocki of Chicago said such legislation could threaten laws that allow health-care workers to refrain from carrying out procedures that violate their conscience, putting Catholic health care institutions in jeopardy. "There are grave consequences," Paprocki said in an interview. "If Catholic hospitals were required by federal law to perform abortions, we'd have to close our hospitals." "I don't think I'm being alarmist," Paprocki told the bishops. George agreed that losing federal funds would put Catholic health care facilities, which make up a third of the nation's hospitals, out of business. Closing Catholic hospitals would put many patients seeking charitable care from those facilities at risk, he added. In crafting the statement to Obama, the bishops urged the cardinal to indicate a desire to work with the administration in areas of economic justice, immigration reform, health care for the poor and religious freedom. But they stressed the church's "intent on opposing evil" and "defense of the unborn child." They vowed to oppose any law or executive order that might loosen restrictions on abortion. They emphasized that efforts to advance abortion rights would "permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans and would be interpreted by many Catholics as an attack on the Church." They also urged Catholics in public life to be committed to the teachings of the church. Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, Pa., vice president-elect Joe Biden's home town, called on his brother bishops to be more punitive against Catholic officials who are "stridently anti-life." "I cannot have the vice president coming to Scranton and saying he learned his values there when those values are utterly against those of the Catholic Church," Martino said. Sister Jamie Phelps, a theologian at Xavier University in Louisiana, also served on Obama's National Catholic Advisory Board. She applauds the bishops for issuing the statement. But she said the Faithful Citizenship document made it clear that while the rights of an unborn child are a priority voters should consider a whole range of issues regarding the preservation and quality of life. "That child has no voice if it's not the voice of the bishops and the voice of Catholics," she said. "But you can not pick and choose an intrinsic evil." George said the Faithful Citizenship document remains the guiding principle for Catholic voters. But he said future versions should be tweaked so portions are not "misused and misinterpreted." He said Catholics seemed to overlook the "whole question of proportionate reason." George has attributed Obama's victory to the economy, insisting that it was not a referendum on moral issues such as abortion rights. The bishops also approved a blessing on Tuesday devoted to a child in the womb, intended to support parents, unite parishes and foster respect for human life within society. "Obviously it's a very tangible way for us to witness pastorally and sacramentally to the life of an unborn child," said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville. "It's very consistent with the priorities we've raised."