The Principle of Objective Evidence

In my last piece I wrote about the illogical assertion by Vice President Biden that although he accepts the Catholic Church’s position on life beginning at conception, he’s not going to impose it on others who disagree.  I’ve noticed a constant thread to the ‘pro-choice” argument:  They always want proof of the pro-life position, such as science but when you show them the scientific proof they tend to change the subject and say things like, “well, the fetus is not a person or other non-sequiturs, such as “I do not agree that science is cut and dried,”  as a commentator said on my last post after I presented her with the scientific proof that human life begins at conception.  Now, I should point out that the “pro-choice” side never has any proof of their position; nor do they claim one.  Let’s look at some logic here about what can be considered good evidence:

In his fine book, Ten Universal Principles; A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues, by Robert J. Spitzer, one of the ten principles is the Principle of Objective Evidence.  Spitzer defines Objective Evidence as nonarbitrary opinions or theories that are based upon publicly verifiable evidence. Is science cut and dry or not?  science is based on observable facts that can be proven.  To say that science is not cut and dry is illogical at best and a contradiction at worst.  Like mathematics, science is not based on religious beliefs or opinion; it is based on observable facts.  As Spitzer points out “when something is only accessible to me, it is called “subjective,” but when something is accessible to everyone, it is called “objective.” Science is objective evidence, accessible to everyone.  The fact that life begins at conception is a proven scientific fact.

Spitzer continues:  “We cannot simply assert something as a matter of our subjective opinion (that is, an opinion that we claim to be true just because we felt or believe that it was so).  This would be merely subjective verification, and, therefore, it could not be used to prove something to somebody else.”  The claim by science that a single cell zygote is a human being is objective proof.

Pro-lifers are often challenged to present proof of their position that the unborn is a human being.  Now I challenge the “pro-choice” side to present proof that the unborn is not a human being.  What is your evidence that meets the Principle of Objective Evidence?  I’ve never heard one.  I’m still waiting to hear one.

Can You Run That by me Again?

A typical, hackneyed response, by a “pro-choice” Roman Catholic, such as Vice President Joe Biden  is “I accept my church’s teaching that life begins at conception, but I’m not going to force it upon those who disagree.”    Can you run that by me again?  You believe that life begins at conception, which necessarily means that at conception a human being exists, but you will not interfere with the killing of  a human being?    It is a contradiction in logic, philosophy, science and everything else. Click here  and listen to VP Biden and Congressman Ryan describe their view on abortion during the Vice President debate of 2012.  What the Vice President is saying is that some human beings can be killed at will if one chooses to.  Secondly, he says that we cannot force those who disagree – what?   What universe are you from?  Every society in this universe has laws against killing human beings.  In the U.S.  we even have laws against killing animals gratuitously.  What the Vice President is saying is pure nonsense, yet this view is widely held in the liberal Catholic community, as well as with most liberal Christians.

The Vice President, in the debate refered to earlier, states that he’s “a practicing Catholic my whole life.”  As Lieutenant Columbo would say, “can I ask you one last question?”  What makes you a Catholic, if you say that you believe in the Church teaching but anyone who disagrees can do whatever they want and you’re ok with it?   How do you separate your private life from your public life?

Here is an example.  During slavery in the early 1800s, the vice president would have said, I believe that slavery is wrong, as my church says, but I’m not going to force it upon those who have different views.  This exactly what the Vice President is saying about abortion.  This is the insanity of the liberal mind.

U.S. Catholic Church Punts On First Down

The other night at a Knights of Columbus meeting our chaplain asked if there were any questions after his brief Chaplain’s Report.  One person asked a very good question:  Why does the Church do nothing about apostate Catholic politicians who publicly rebuke the Church on abortion and marriage issues?  I’ve asked this question myself for a long time.  The chaplain, who is my pastor, and one of the best orators that I’ve ever seen, gave a very tortured and circular answer that evaded the question.  This is very typical of the U.S. Church’s position on these issues:  The Church is very timid when it comes to confronting these issues with those who publicly oppose it.  When some bishops come out and speak against those who are for same-sex marriage and abortion, they walk on eggs.    They have the ball, first and ten,  and they punt, to use a football analogy.  This is what perplexes most faithful Catholics.

The problem, I believe, is that the Church has been co-opted by the culture, and intimidated into silence.  In our politically correct culture of our day, you are not allowed to call evil what it is:  evil; if you do they will take your head off.  The Church has fallen victim to this type of intimidation.  Why, you may ask, is this the case?  The culture has many “divisions,” to use a military analogy.  The culture has the big pulpit, the main stream media, Hollywood, the Universities, public education and they have the liberal Catholics who consider, abortion and marriage to be subjective options which they totally approve of.  How do I know this?  I speak to many of my liberal Catholic friends and this is what most will tell you.  Abortion is a “woman’s right to choose,”   and same-sex marriage is now the “in” thing to do; so get on the bandwagon.

A close liberal friend of mine brought me an article the other day, written by a Jesuit priest, Fr. Thomas J. Reese, called “Is there a Political Plan B for the Bishops?.”  Jesuits are notoriously liberal and known to follow their own way, rather than the Church.  The article suggests that the bishops who’ve been outspoken about same-sex marriage and abortion during the election season should go along with what the young people want, namely same-sex marriage and the legality of abortion. Fr. Reese suggest a surrender:  “First, it is clear there is an approaching tsunami of young voters who will eventually make same-sex marriage legal in most states.  The likelihood of stopping this tsunami is very low.”  “If making abortion illegal is an impossible dream in the current political environment, what is plan B? Plan B has to be working with politicians of any stripe, including pro-abortion-rights politicians, in supporting programs that will reduce the number of abortions.”  What?  supporting programs that will reduce the number of abortions?  What might these programs be?  How about making murder legal and just supporting programs that discourage murder?  This is the insanity and the moral collapse of some church leaders.  Heaven help us.

Liberal Catholics Eat the Apple

Catholics represent about 25% of the U.S. population and are a formidable voting block, if it were not that they vote the same as the general population.  In 2008, for example, 54% of Catholics voted for Barack Obama, the most pro-abortion, far left politician in U.S. history.  Obama was then and is now a fervent defender of abortion rights at any stage and even after a failed abortion, he voted to deny life to a baby that had survived abortion when he was in the Illinois house.  He is for gay marriage and has waged a war with the Catholic Church on religious freedom in his HHS mandate that Catholic institutions must provide for contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs to their employees, even though this goes against church teaching.  Obama promised Cardinal Dolan of New York that he would do whatever it takes to protect religious freedom in a face to face meeting. Click here to hear Cardinal Dolan discuss this meeting.

Abortion and marriage are two huge church teachings, but Catholics choose to ignore their church.  The dictionary defines apostasy as:  the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief.  It can be stated categorically that such catholics are apostates, yet they attend church and receive communion as if they were in line with the church.  The church herself turns a blind eye to such people; it’s sort of “don’t ask don’t tell” situation.  The church herself is infested with such people in its own ranks.  For example, a large group of nuns have been recently censured for not following church teaching as it relates to abortion, marriage, women as priests and an interpretation of the scriptures that is more in line with Marxism than with the church, such as the followers of Liberation Theology.  Catholic universities such as Notre Dame and Georgetown openly entertain dissent from church doctrine as if it were the right thing to do.  Just recently, Georgetown trotted out a student, Sandra Fluke, to support the Obama Administration’s denial of religious freedom in the HHS Mandate.  A few weeks later they hosted a speech by Kathleen Sibelius who is the author of the HHS mandate against religious freedom.  Notre Dame university hosted President Obama after his election despite his hostility to church teaching on marriage and the dignity of life.

Catholics have had the power to shape our political and moral landscape and have opted out.  Prior to 1973 many Democrats, including the Kennedys were pro-life, as was most of the Democratic Party.  What happened?  In a Wall Street Journal article of January 1, 2009, Anne Hendershott explains:  “But that all changed in the early ’70s, when Democratic politicians first figured out that the powerful abortion lobby could fill their campaign coffers (and attract new liberal voters).  They were presented with the same test as Adam and Eve but chose to align with the devil instead.   Hendershott explains how the Kennedys changed:   “In some cases, church leaders actually started providing “cover” for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights.  At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a “clear conscience.”  One of the participants, Father Giles Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice:  “The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at nearby hotel.  In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers.  Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics…. and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion.”  Among the Catholic luminaries who advised on this were Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan and Charles Curran.

Because of this the U.S. Liberal Catholics have chosen to follow the serpent rather than God.    I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. Liberal Catholics have sold the church down the river of death.  Since 1973 over 55 million babies have been killed by abortion.

Institutional Amnesia: How the Church Ignores Abortion

This past Sunday at our church a visiting priest gave a pitch for helping needy children world-wide.  He spoke eloquently on what Jesus said about visiting, feeding and clothing Him in Matthew 25:36.  In his homily, he mentioned all the world’s vulnerable people with one stark exception:  the unborn.  As I was listening to his talk, I could not help but to think that a homily like this on the unborn would never be allowed by perhaps 95% of all Roman Catholic Church pastors.  When our Respect Life Ministry tried to get approval for a priest to visit our parish and preach a pro-life message we were denied not once, but twice.

This is fairly typical of most Catholic parishes.  It is my experience, although I cannot prove it, nor have any hard evidence, that most parish pastors stay away from the abortion issue like it was a communicable disease.

If you’re Roman Catholic, as I am, you know that the Catholic Church is strongly pro-life and has always been, so why do most Catholic parishes shy away from the abortion issue?  Second only to the pedophile scandal, I have the most anger at my church on this surrender of what is a strong Church teaching.  It would not be a stretch to conclude that the Church stays away from abortion because she is intimidated by the Catholic left which champions abortion rights. Just talk to ten liberal Catholics as see how many vote Republican:  none.

it is my belief that the Church has surrendered to the culture of today.  Back to the homily on feeding and clothing the poor.  In Los Angeles County alone, on an average day, there are about 155 abortions performed per day.  These innocent babies are dismembered in the womb and discarded as if they were infected tonsils, yet no one complains.  Do you know how many children die of starvation in the United States per year?  There are no known statistics, yet an average of 1.2 million babies are dismembered in the womb and tossed out in the garbage every year in the United States alone, while the church stays quiet.  Does the Nazi holocaust come to mind?  This is no different.  See no evil, hear no evil.

Abortion and the Moral Law

One of the most perplexing issues as a pro-life apologist is how my opponents on the pro-choice side can justify their position on abortion.  I’ve never heard one argument that follows any logic or any argument that is supported by any evidence for their cause.  All I ever hear is “I’m for a woman’s right to choose” or “a woman’s body is hers to control” or words to this effect.  Never are these arguments followed by evidence or logic to support the statement made.

Abortion has been an accepted part of our culture since the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973.  Most of our universities, mass media and Hollywood accept and promote abortion as a right just like the right to drive and own property.  The unborn are always treated as a piece of tissue, akin to your tonsils– never a human life.  Pro-choice politicians of either party will tell you that they believe “in a woman’s right to choose.”  There are many reasons why our culture accepts abortion.  In this piece, however, I will deal with one of them – a denial of the moral law.

The pro-abortion side won a major cultural victory when they brilliantly were able to market their position as “pro-choice.”  Being “pro-choice” is a value-neutral term and is easy for most people to accept.  Who, after all, can be against personal choice?  But what does this choice mean?  John Horvat II explains in an article called “Beyond Pro-Life, Fighting the Culture War”.  Horvat states:

And this “choice” means freedom from rules, morals or restraints.  An unlimited choice is what unifies the radicals of the Culture War.  Thus, they display a consistent unity favoring not only abortion but also any other practice – free love, homosexuality, bi-sexuality, transgender or any sexual deviation – that favors a raging sensuality.  In short, their unifying principle is this “freedom” which is actually a revolt against moral law ranging from a mild irritation to a rabid fanaticism.

I am not suggesting that this is true for all pro-abortion advocates, but it is true for most.  Most pro-choice advocates, I have found, believe in moral relativism – the belief that they and they alone can be the sole arbiters of what is right or wrong for them.  I have found that with pro-choice Christians, there exists a personal belief in their right to make moral judgments apart from the Church or any moral law.  All you have to do to verify this is to look at a Catholic, for instance, who is pro-choice, even though the Catholic Church condemns abortion in the strongest terms, or a liberal Protestant who goes against what his faith community teaches.

As  one who has been on both sides of this issue, I can testify that this description was eerily correct for me.  As I hearken back to when I was on the “pro-choice” side, one of the reasons was so that I would have the freedom to say, well, I may have been wrong but I felt that I was right at the time.  In other words, I was trying to set myself up so as to have “plausible deniability.”   I was convinced, in other words, by the moral relativism of the culture that whatever one thinks is right for them is right, and accordingly, no punishment would follow.

Much has been written about the “law written in our heart.”  The Bible, in Romans 2:15 states: “since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”  The law written in our hearts refers to the rules of proper conduct that all of us humans share inherently.  In other words, most of us would agree that we automatically know what is right and what is wrong even in the absence of any written law or teaching.  We instinctually know that to steal from our neighbor is wrong; to abuse children is wrong; to lie is wrong and so on.  J. Budziszewski has written two books on this subject.  One of them is titled What We Can’t Not Know.  In this book Budziszewski talks about the foundational moral principles that are the same for all, both as rectitude and to knowledge and that these principles are for everyone.  To say that they are the same means that at some level, everyone knows them:  The murderer knows that murder is wrong, the adulterer, that adultery is wrong, and the mocker that mockery is wrong.[i]

Budziszewski’s argument is as follows:  “However rude it may be these days to say so, there are some moral truths that we all really know – truths which a normal human being is unable not to know.  They are universal possession, an emblem of rational mind, and heirloom of the family of man.”[ii] 

When it comes to abortion, I’m afraid that the pro-choice person knows that the unborn is human but refuses to acknowledge it, thinking that if they do not think about it or confront the reality, they can claim “plausible deniability.”  Having been pro-choice myself, I can testify that this was true for me.  In talking to my pro-choice friends – and I have many of them, some belong to my Catholic church, I can assume, with good reason, that this is their reasoning too.  Many, probably, would deny this allegation, but I believe that the denial would be for self-protection.

J. Budziszewski, in another book on this type of subject called Written on the Heart talks about the Natural Law.  He drives his point home strongly when he states: “From this perspective, most modern ethical thinking goes about matters backwards.  It assumes that the problem of human sin is mainly cognitive – that it has to do with the state of our knowledge.  In other words, it holds that we do not know what’s right or wrong and we are trying to find out.  But natural-law theory assumes that the problem is mainly volitional – that it has to do with the state of our will.  It holds that we know what’s right and wrong but wish we didn’t and that we try to keep ourselves in ignorance so that we can do as we please.”[iii]  The defense rests.

[i]  J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know, (Spence Publishing, 2003), p. 3

[ii] J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know, (Spence Publishing, 2003), p.19

[iii] J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart, A Case for Natural Law, (InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.185

When Will They Learn? How the Church Handles Apostates

The other day my wife an I were watching a Catholic program on EWTN called “The World Over” with Raymond Arroyo.  Mr. Arroyo was interviewing Cardinal elect Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York.  In the course of the interview Arroyo asked the Archbishop how he would handle New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who had vigorously pushed and signed a new law legalizing gay marriage in public defiance of the Catholic Church.  Governor Cuomo claims he’s a Catholic.  Archbishop Dolan responded that he would try convincing the governor of the error of his ways (my words).  This is the same failed strategy used by church leaders  since time immemorial.

Can you think of a case where a church leader has been successful in changing the mind of a person such as Governor Cuomo?  I’ve never heard of one.  Do you think that any Catholic leader could change the moral positions of such luminaries as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, to name just a handful?  History has shown that this strategy will never work.   This is pure appeasement.  Appeasement is as good as surrender.   This is what has happened to the Church today when it comes to the moral issues of our day, such as abortion, euthanasia, marriage and the family.    Some examples of failed appeasement experiments:

1. “Peace in our time” by the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938.  Click here to view the video of Chamberlain’s announcement in 1938.  Right after he signed the appeasement agreement with Hitler, what happened in 1939?  Hitler conquered Czechoslovakia, the subject of the agreement,  then came the invasion and conquest of Poland and the start of War II.  Peace in our time?
2. The Vietnam Paris Peace Talks of 1968-1973.  As a Vietnam veteran myself I recall this as if it happened yesterday.  I was in Vietnam when these failed talks started.  The Americans signed a peace treaty with the North Vietnamese in 1973.  What happened after this agreement was signed?  By 1975 the North Vietnamese had conquered all of Vietnam.  What happened to the treaty?
3. Notre Dame, a Catholic University, invites the most pro-abortion president in history to speak there in 2009.  Click here to watch a short clip of Fr. John Jenkins, an apostate priest and president of Notre Dame, make the most lavish and loving introduction of President Obama; you would think that he was introducing Pope Benedict XVI.  I’m sure he would not be so kind to the Pope.
4. Archbishop Dolan himself has met with President Obama in the last few months and supposedly, shared with him his concerns.  No doubt he told him of his opposition to the HHS proposal to force Catholic institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraception at no cost to the employee.  Well, what happened after this meeting?  Just this week HHS announced that they will force Catholic institutions to provide such benefits and there will be no conscience or  religious exceptions. Check out the story by clicking here.

Appeasement does not work.  Appeasement does not work.  When will they learn?

Can You be a Catholic and “Pro-Choice”?

It is a known fact that Catholics are no different from the general population when it comes to who is pro-life or “pro-choice.”  The question I want to address here is can you be a good Catholic and be “pro-choice”?  Go to most Catholic churches and you will find that 40 to 60% will probably be liberal Catholics, meaning that they follow the secular culture more closely than they follow the church.  Let’s start with one example, the abortion issue.  The Catholic Church is clearly pro-life.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church  can’t be more clear on the subject:

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish (74).  God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.(75)

2272 Formal co-operation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. ‘A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication lataesententiae‘ (76) ‘by the very commission of the offence’, (77) and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law . (78) The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

Liberal Catholics ignore this requirement with impunity.  No one I know, or have heard of, has ever been excommunicated for being pro-abortion, or supporting pro-abortion legislation or politicians, not even people who defy the church publicly such as Catholic politicians such as John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sibelius and countless more.  So the question arises can you be a Catholic and ignore essential Church teaching?  I will argue that you cannot.   Let me put it simply:  If you do not follow what the Church teaches 100% of the time, you cannot call yourself  Catholic; you’re an apostate Catholic.  What is an apostate?  The dictionary defines “apostate” as one who is not faithful to religion or party or cause.  If you’re not all in, you’re all out.  In Revelation 3:15-16 the Lord says this:

¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

In Luke 13 Jesus is asked about who will be saved; in Luke 13:24-27 He responds this way:

²⁴ “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. ²⁵ Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’  ²⁶ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’   ²⁷ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’

You may think that this is too narrow and that a loving God would not punish someone who thinks that he/she can ignore with impunity what His Church teaches.  If this was the case, that you could decide what to follow and what not to follow, why do you need a church?  You can decide these things for yourself.  You would not need a church.  The ultimate question is  who is the final authority?  Is it you or is it God and or the Church.  Right and wrong is based on a universal standard such as the Bible or the Church.  If the standard is you, why follow the Bible or the Church, you believe that you can decide the best.

Let’s use an example from our daily lives.  Can you be faithful to your wife or husband, for example, if you are not 100% faithful?  If you determine that in some situations you can be unfaithful are you really faithful?  NO.  You’re 100% faithful or you’re not.  If you’re Catholic and support legislation that promotes abortion or a political candidate that supports abortion, you’re not faithful to the church; you’re an apostate, pure and simple, re-read the definition of apostate as mentioned earlier.