Opinion: Doug Kmiec on McCain v. Obama at Saddleback

....The Obama campaign had thoughtfully arranged for my wife and myself to attend the forum, and we did – well, sort of. When we arrived with plenty of time, the church grounds were “locked down” and we never did make it inside. The Sheriff’s Department was confronted at the entrance with loud and sometimes unruly protest. Many protesting were carrying large pictures of unborn or aborted babies.

As a pro-life Catholic, I understand that one way to instruct about evil is to unmask its ugliness. Abortion is ugly. And so for the next two hours we were subjected to one bloody photo or another being thrust into our face as one epithet or another was hurled at Senator Obama. There was also a contingent of yellow-tee-shirted protestors proclaiming marriage to be between one man and one woman, to which as Catholics we also concur....

After declaring abortion to be intrinsically wrongful, the Catholic mind too often closes itself to all but one means – the reversal of Roe -- of addressing it. Like McCain’s un-nuanced understanding of evil this incomplete thought plays into, if not stokes, the “us v. them” mentality.

I don't know if this ignorance arises from too many years in the ivory tower or ideological blindness.

One example among thousands like it: Cradle of Hope, which I've supported for decades, is a crisis pregnancy center that in its more than 30 years of existence has given over 16,000 women and their babies grants totaling over $3,000,000.

When Cradle of Hope's annual statement arrives, it's packed with the names of Catholic churches and organizations (and parishioners, although they're not identified as such) who have donated time and money to COH. Catholics are and always have been in the front lines helping women to choose life and helping them pick up the pieces when they've chosen abortion.

Kmiec doesn't know his tuchis from first base on this issue.

I, unfortunately, am not a person with a whole lot of intuitive insight into human nature. That said, I do always tend to mitigate the blame in cases by this by assuming that, since at this point he's not really arguing coherently, either he had a traumatic personal experience that he's reacting to irrationally, or, literally, his mind is failing.

People should try to reason with him, though. And I mean persistently and challengingly. Unless and until it becomes clear that he's a victim of amyloid-beta plaque.

The minute you hear a person who claims to be Catholic utter the word “social justice” in any context other than mockingly, believe me the person (even if he wears a collar or a habit) is off the plantation. Its not about Catholicism but liberalism.

Catholicism teaches compassion not hatred, and its most disturbing that he assumes everyone there protesting Fauxbama with anger and vulgarness are somehow tied to the Church.

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