The confluence of events surrounding the Obama administration’s arrogant political use of Catholics is dreadful! The most recent announcement from the Obama campaign about a new 2012 division—known oxymoronically as Catholics for Obama—is one example of what I mean.
The Catholics for Obama website reveals that dissident nuns like those represented at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) are popular with Obama. For those unfamiliar with this group of nuns, they are radicals within the Church who want most of all to tell the Vatican to mind its own business. Catholics for Obama also caters to those in the Church who deny the abortifacient nature of chemical contraception and those who think that gun control is more important than putting an end to abortion. In other words, the operation appears to be composed of those who desire “change” within the core teachings of the Church.
Catholics for Obama has a who’s who of dissident Catholics on its list of national co-chairs, including such luminaries as Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), former Minnesota congressman James Oberstar, and Victoria Reggie Kennedy of Massachusetts—Senator Ted Kennedy’s widow.
The Cardinal Newman Society reported on the fact that among the advisors for this Obama charade are professors currently teaching on Catholic campuses. Included is Duquesne Law School’s Nicholas Cafardi who describes himself as a part-time member of the “parallel magisterium.” For those unfamiliar with the magisterium of the Catholic Church, it is the teaching office of the Church that consists of the pope and the bishops.
Obviously in the case of the gathering of “Catholics” comprising the leadership of Catholics for Obama, we have a group of Catholics whose primary motive is the deconstruction of the Church as we know it. People like these are dangerous because they are anything but Catholic.
Every election cycle is the same; each brings out the same old tired hacks who find politics a fitting venue for dishonoring Catholic doctrine for political gain. In 2008, Bishop Martino, then bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, instructed his priests to read a letter from the pulpits in which he wrote these words:
As Catholics, we should not be surprised by these developments. Forty years ago, Pope Paul VI predicted that widespread use of artificial contraceptives would lead to increased marital infidelity, lessened regard for women, and a general lowering of moral standards especially among the young. Forty years later, social scientists, not necessarily Catholics, attest to the accuracy of his predictions. As if following some bizarre script, the sexual revolution has produced widespread marital breakdown, weakened family ties, legalized abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, pornography, same-sex unions, euthanasia, destruction of human embryos for research purposes and a host of other ills.
Further, Martino wrote:
While the Church assists the state in the promotion of a just society, its primary concern is to assist men and women in achieving salvation. For this reason, it is incumbent upon bishops to correct Catholics who are in error regarding these matters. Furthermore, public officials who are Catholic and who persist in public support for abortion and other intrinsic evils should not partake in or be admitted to the sacrament of Holy Communion.
In 2012, when speaking to a group at the Knights of Columbus annual convention, Baltimore archbishop Lori stated, “The question to ask is this: Are any of the candidates of either party, or independents, standing for something that is intrinsically evil, evil no matter what the circumstances? If that’s the case, a Catholic, regardless of his party affiliation, shouldn’t be voting for such a person.”
There you have it.
Catholics should not be voting for politicians who favor intrinsically evil acts like abortion. Catholics who contradict Church teaching on these fundamental questions should never be given the chance to receive the body of Christ in Holy Communion.
We must be vigilant and we must expect the same from pastors, priests, and bishops. We must expose the Obama paradigm that superimposes good with evil, thus sowing seeds of confusion among Catholics and others. The end game is obvious—granting power to those who detest the Church and all that is good about Christianity.
We can do this. In addition, we can and we must ask the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and president of the Al Smith Foundation, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, to send a clear message to Obama: NO DINNER FOR OBAMA!
