Category: Politics

Dissenting Catholic Dick Durbin tells Dems not to dissent on abortion.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 24, 2017 • Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

The hypocrisy of Sen. Dick Durbin knows no bounds. He is a Catholic who pub­licly dis­sents from his Church on abor­tion. And yet he has no dif­fi­cul­ty in telling fel­low Democ­rats that if they are pro-life, they have no place in the par­ty. So as Durbin sees it, you have a high­er oblig­a­tion to your polit­i­cal par­ty than you do to your Church. You should obey men rather than God. For­tu­nate­ly, Durbin’s bish­op has invoked Canon 915 and for­bid­den him Holy Com­mu­nion. This should also be the case with Pelosi, Biden, Ker­ry, and Kaine. It won’t, but it should.

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Sean Spicer is right: German Jews weren’t German citizens.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 12, 2017 • Politics

 

Sean Spicer stu­pe­fied the mass­es when he said: “I think when you come to sarin gas, [Hitler] was not using the gas on his own peo­ple the same way that Assad is doing.” Hitler was much bet­ter than Assad! But this claim that Hitler nev­er gassed his own peo­ple? Think Progress says it is “false.” NBC News says it is false. Every­where, peo­ple are say­ing it is false. Actu­al­ly, Mr. Spicer is right: Ger­man Jews were not Ger­man cit­i­zens. On Sep­tem­ber 15, 1935, the Nurem­berg Race Laws stripped Jews of Reich cit­i­zen­ship. So when Hitler used the sarin gas, he was not using it on Ger­man cit­i­zens.

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Trump senior adviser: His powers are “substantial” & “will not be questioned.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 13, 2017 • Politics

 

No one doubts that pres­i­dents have author­i­ty in nation­al secu­ri­ty mat­ters. But their pow­er is not, nev­er has been, and must nev­er be, unlim­it­ed and immune from ques­tion or check. That is not the way of the Unit­ed States. But now Stephen Miller, a senior advis­er to Pres­i­dent Trump comes along and utters words that—to my knowledge—have nev­er been dared spo­ken about a pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States before, unless Mr. Trump imag­ines that he is about to sus­pend habeas cor­pus. The sub­ject was the trav­el ban.

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Where is the baby now? Fr. Frank Pavone’s words are inconsistent.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 14, 2016 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Scandals; Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

First, Fr. Frank Pavone said that the abort­ed baby he used as a prop in his pro­pa­gan­da film for Mr. Trump was “entrust­ed to us by a pathol­o­gist for bur­ial.” “We have had a funer­al,” he said on Face­book. Then, when the Nation­al Catholic Reporter fol­lowed up with this self­less man of God, Pavone said, “Oh, I’ve returned it to a Protes­tant pas­tor for bur­ial.” Now he says the funer­al direc­tor gave it to a Protes­tant pas­tor, who con­tact­ed Priests for Life and loaned them the corpse, but expect­ed it back for bur­ial. This poor baby keeps get­ting tossed around like a foot­ball.

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How long has Fr. Frank Pavone had that fetus?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 11, 2016 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Scandals; Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

A dead baby VERY SIMILAR to this one was put on pub­lic dis­play in Char­lotte before the 2012 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion. When asked what hap­pened to the baby’s remains after the “event,” which fea­tured the baby in an open cas­ket on the side­walk out­side a Catholic church … Fr. Pavone would not say any­thing oth­er than that he has a memo­r­i­al to the unborn in New York that his min­istry man­ages. The rea­son I note the sim­i­lar­i­ty … is that the bruis­ing and dis­col­oration are due to the effects of a saline abor­tion. …

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But will Fr. Frank Pavone take instruction from his bishop?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 10, 2016 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Scandals; Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

In a veiled swipe at this blog, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life petu­lant­ly stat­ed that he would “not take instruc­tion” from those who say (which I did) that his cute lit­tle stunt of turn­ing a fetus into a polit­i­cal prop for Don­ald Trump was a “sac­ri­lege.” We laity need to learn our place. How­ev­er, Fr. Pavone’s bish­op, the Most Rev. Patrick Zurek, has issued a state­ment of his own on this mat­ter, and I won­der whether Fr. Pavone will wish to “take instruc­tion” from him. Zurek’s words were stronger than mine. He called Fr. Pavone’s actions a “des­e­cra­tion of the altar.”

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Our hope is in Christ, not Caesar.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 9, 2016 • Politics

 

Trump, with­out mean­ing it, could help to reac­quaint Amer­i­can Catholics with some impor­tant fun­da­men­tals. It would be a good if he were to con­vince Catholics who have thought oth­er­wise that the solu­tion to abor­tion must be a moral solu­tion rather than a polit­i­cal one. And it would be good if he were final­ly to con­vince Catholics who have thought oth­er­wise that we must put our hopes in Christ and not in Cae­sar. Cae­sar will always betray us; Christ nev­er will. Trump will be no ally to us; if you think oth­er­wise, he will dis­abuse you of that notion.

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The evil of abortion does not justify Fr. Frank Pavone.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 8, 2016 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

Fr. Pavone, when you used the naked, burned, uncov­ered body of an abort­ed child, when you placed that child on a Catholic altar which is reserved to the cel­e­bra­tion of the Mass, and when you filmed a video so that peo­ple would vote for Mr. Trump, you did not  treat that child, made in the image of God, whose worth is beyond mea­sure, with “respect and char­i­ty.” If you claim you did, you do no hon­or to the Holy Spir­it. You do no hon­or to turn a tem­ple of the Holy Spir­it into a polit­i­cal prop. Who­ev­er does so com­mits a crime as great as abor­tion itself.

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But is it the government’s job to ensure a just wage?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 4, 2016 • Church Social Teaching; Politics

 

Some, putting up the armor of polit­i­cal the­o­ry against the teach­ing of the Church, will object that wages are a pri­vate con­tract. If a man thinks his wage is unjust, he can ask for a raise. Just like that! Or if his boss is a tight­wad, he can find anoth­er job. Just like that! Sim­ple. Boss­es and mag­nates nev­er exploit­ed labor in the good old US of A, before there were laws to pre­vent it! That just did not hap­pen. Not ever! But Leo XIII would find such think­ing naïve. “The labor­ing man,” he says, “is, as a rule, weak and unpro­tect­ed” and often a vic­tim of “usu­ri­ous deal­ing.”

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Social justice is also a non-negotiable.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 3, 2016 • Church Social Teaching; Politics

 

Bot­tom line: The Church does not tell us how to vote. Often a can­di­date who sup­ports abor­tion is run­ning against a can­di­date who oppos­es social jus­tice. The Church does not tell us how to resolve this con­flict. What the Church does do is name the moral prin­ci­ples that should fac­tor in our vot­ing, and then leave it up to the individual’s own con­science and prayer. The one thing the Church tells us we must not do, on pain of mor­tal sin, is vote for a can­di­date because that can­di­date sup­ports abor­tion. Our motives can put us into mor­tal sin, but not our vote itself.

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Bishop DiLorenzo responds to Tim Kaine on same-sex marriage.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 14, 2016 • In the News; LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Politics

 

Clear, brief, and no-non­sense. Though some, undoubt­ed­ly, will want to kvetch that DiLoren­zo does not men­tion Kaine by name, he does indi­cate that his words were prompt­ed by “recent state­ments from the cam­paign trail.” Kaine’s words had prompt­ed myself, as well as oth­ers, to call upon the bish­op to cor­rect the sen­a­tor. If Kaine wish­es to con­tin­ue his sup­port of same-sex mar­riage, let him do so, but let him do so as a dis­si­dent Catholic — not under the guise of a “devout” one. A devout Catholic does not pub­licly defy the teach­ing of the Church. End stop.

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It is time for “devout Catholic” Tim Kaine to be publicly corrected.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 11, 2016 • In the News; LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Politics

 

Sen. Kaine, in remarks at the annu­al gala of the Human Rights campaign—McClatchy reports on it—said he believes the Church may even­tu­al­ly change its posi­tion on same-sex mar­riage. “I think it’s going to change,” Kaine says, “because my church also teach­es me about a cre­ator who, in the first chap­ter of Gen­e­sis, sur­veyed the entire world, includ­ing mankind, and said, ‘It is very good.’ ” So? What does that mean? I’m sor­ry, Sen. Kaine, but you are caus­ing con­fu­sion and scan­dal. God said “it is good,” but he also cre­at­ed them male and female for com­ple­men­tar­i­ty.

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Yes, Virginia, Catholics can say abortion should be legal.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 7, 2016 • Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

I sym­pa­thize with Fr. Malone’s main con­cern, which was the pres­ence of pro­test­ers as Sen. Kaine arrived for Mass on August 28. One of them held a sign that said that he and Mrs. Clin­ton are “a match made in Hell.” Anoth­er held a sign cit­ing canon 915. These love­ly peo­ple would be bet­ter advised to go inside, kneel, pray, and attend to their own wor­thi­ness to receive the Eucharist. If they have con­cerns about canon 915, or about Sen. Kaine, they should write his bish­op. Engag­ing in self-right­eous street the­ater does no one any good, includ­ing the pro-life move­ment.

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On the seamless garment, and Catholics writing about politics.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 22, 2016 • Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

There is a species of read­er who always seems to know bet­ter than you what ought to inter­est you and what you ought to say. Just as often, this read­er (or Face­book denizen) knows all the things a writer like you should not both­er with. I get e‑mails with the instruc­tions, “Hey, Alt! You should write a post about the Johan­nine com­ma!” or “Hey, Alt! Did you see this stu­pid thing that Mr. Y post­ed at the-pope-is-the-antichrist.com? You ought to refute that!” One would think I took were a DJ, or an impres­sion­ist, and took requests. I mar­vel at this and much else.

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In election, protecting conscience as important as ending abortion.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 16, 2016 • Politics; Pro-Life Issues

 

In my own case, sev­er­al peo­ple have hijacked dis­cus­sions on my Face­book wall in order to write long and graph­ic descrip­tions of what hap­pens dur­ing an abor­tion. Or to say that six­ty mil­lion dead babies are plead­ing with us to vote for Mr. Trump. Yes­ter­day, some­one tweet­ed to me a graph­ic pic­ture of a bloody and dis­mem­bered baby as the kind of thing I would be respon­si­ble for — not if I vote for Mrs. Clin­ton, but mere­ly if I refuse to vote for Mr. Trump. This is emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion. It is the tac­tic, not of thinkers, but of bul­lies. And so my read­er is exact­ly right.

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