Posted on 08/29/2012 9:36:42 AM PDT by marshmallow
In an editorial decrying the statement by Cardinal Sean Brady that the Catholic Church would oppose legalization of abortion in Ireland, the Irish Times has expressed surprise and disappointment that the Church would consider “aggressive political lobbying of the kind more usually found in the United States.”
If the Church argues against acceptance of abortion, the editorial argues, lawmakers should not recognize the authority of the Church’s teachings. “They have to decide which takes precedence: canon law or the law of the land.”
The editorial does not explain why the Church would need to invoke canon law in order to make the case against the killing of innocent unborn children. Nor does the Times explain how legislators could be governed by “the law of the land” when they are asked to amend the law of the land.
Lobbying on Abortion (Irish Times)
Anyone who takes more than a second to answer that one really needs to examine their faith.
The editorialist can go to Hell, from whence that lie came.
If the “church” has problems with protecting God’s innocent, unborn creations they are more confused than they think their parishioners are. I’m pretty sure that one of the 10 Commandments covers this and they’d be on firm ground. (/s)
Wow.
Truer words never spoken. You'll have to choose which takes precedence, God's law or man's.
The Irish government is made up of friggin illiterate morons. The Catholic Church does NOT oppose abortion because it is a doctrine of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church IS against abotion because it violates NATURAL LAW - a law accessible to all human persons by virtue of reason. If the Irish government understood their own intellectual legacy, they would know this. Since they are no longer faithful Catholics, it makes sense that they would be ignorant of this fact. But then again, any protestant, atheist, jewish, mulim - makes no difference is able to use their rational faculty to reach the same conclusion. Only problem with so many of these is that their rational faculty is atrophied and its place taken by “feelings” and “sentimentality.” Study the natural law and you will understand what I am talking about. A good place to start is by reading the book by Budzewski entitled “What We Can’t Not Know.”
What Jefferson called "the American mind" of 1776 recognized, as that Declaration states, a Supreme Being in four distinct manifestations: as "Creator," or Source of life and rights; as "Divine Providence"; as "Nature's god"; and, as "Supreme Judge of the World."
Blackstone's "Commentaries" were popular in America and were directed by the Board, according to Jefferson, to be used in teaching the law and Constitution to students at the University of Virginia:
"Man ... must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator.. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.... This law of nature...is of course superior to any other.... No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force...from this original." - Sir William Blackstone (Eminent English Jurist)
"The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him, from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human laws which contradict His laws we are in conscience bound to disobey." - George Mason, Delegate from Virginia, and Signer of the Constitution
Finally, from James Madison, known for much of America's history as the "father" of the Constitution:
"Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence." The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority." - Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785
I'll make a wild-eyed guess, here, that the editor needs to repent NOW ... or that's exactly where he's headed.
May God grant him the grace of repentance and conversion.
How far Ireland has fallen.
While I am not a Catholic, I now what scripture says about protecting the little children. I have no trouble deciding whether protecting innocent unborn children is one of the things where we should allow the government to lead rather than following God's lead.
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