But the Priest is being disingenuous in the extreme. For the Abortionists are not contending that the Choice they advocate is between good and evil. They have gone to great lengths to remove not only legal sanctions against the choice to kill your baby. They have gone to equal lengths to make that choice seem perfectly acceptable morally.
It is also a choice whether to steal from the collection plate or not. Everything this Priest says about Abortion, would equally apply there--as it would to Murder, Rape, Robbery, etc..
As a non-Catholic, I have no right to protest dissembling in the Church. This comment is intended to go only to the logic of the Priest's contentions--not to his right voice them.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Oh, I see. So as a Catholic in good standing I can favor one having the "choice" to torture small animals, never go to mass, and rob banks? The intellectual contortions of the pro-abortionists never cease to amaze me.
I, like every living Christian, am a sinner. I don't tithe enough. I curse. I have lustful thoughts. But I don't rationalize that my sins are anything but sins.
Henry Hyde had it right when he was on the House floor debating the partial birth abortion ban. He said the abortion lobby's stock and trade is the euphemism. And, to quote directly, "The queen mother of all euphemisms is choice! As if you're making the decision between chocolate and vanilla instead of between a live baby and a dead baby!"
Many want poor or "evil" choices to be free of judgement or onerous consequences.
God Bless,
Mel
Being aginst abortion is one of the few remaining differences. That will eventually dissolve, as other differences have.
Free Will gives freedom to sin. It doesn't mean God approves of sin even though He granted the Free Will.
Pro-Choice = Pro-Murder! - despite the Free Will.
The last I checked, Jesus was against murder. Somehow, I can't see Him standing there in his surgical mask with a scalpel, forceps and a suction-machine ripping a baby from a womb!
But then, I'm not a Theological Liberal trying to justify my own version of sin.
God gave us free will. That does not mean that God gives us freedom to chose whatever evil, whatever depravity we wish without consequence.
He tries to draw a distinction between being “pro-choice” and being “pro-abortion.” This is sophmoric. In the modern parlance, “pro-choice” is very definitely “pro-abortion.” All the “pro-choice” groups fight tooth and nail against requiring family-planning centers to inform mothers of alternatives to abortion, or requirements for parental consent.
Even regarding “pro choice”, as he tries to, as simply an endorsement of our God-given personal liberty... murdering born children does not fall within the ambit of liberty, so how does a Catholic priest conclude that murdering unborn children does?
Does this include the "freedom" to commit murder, adultry, polytheism, theft, etc.?
Hate the sin but love the sinner. It does not mean condoning such an act.
It is evident that the determination of what is right or wrong in human conduct belongs to the science of ethics and the teaching of religious authority. Both of these declare the Divine law, "Thou shalt not kill". The embryonic child, as seen above, has a human soul; and therefore is a man from the time of its conception; therefore it has an equal right to its life with its mother; therefore neither the mother, nor medical practitioner, nor any human being whatever can lawfully take that life away. The State cannot give such right to the physician; for it has not itself the right to put an innocent person to death. No matter how desirable it might seem to be at times to save the life of the mother, common sense teaches and all nations accept the maxim, that "evil is never to be done that good may come of it"; or, which is the same thing, that "a good end cannot justify a bad means". Now it is an evil means to destroy the life of an innocent child. The plea cannot be made that the child is an unjust aggressor. It is simply where nature and its own parents have put it. Therefore, Natural Law forbids any attempt at destroying fetal life.
As to the penalties she inflicts upon the guilty parties, her present legislation was fixed by the Bull of Pius IX "Apostolicae Sedis". It decrees excommunication -- that is, deprivation of the Sacraments and of the Prayers of the Church in the case of any of her members, and other privations besides in the case of clergymen -- against all who seek to procure abortion, if their action produces the effect.
I bet this priest is a member of a dissident group at odds with official teachings... one of the pick and choose types.