Another Catholic Politician Feels The Pro Life Sword

School’s commencement pick of Sen. Casey ‘sad and disappointing,’ Bishop Martino says

Scranton, Pa., May 5, 2009 / 06:27 am (CNA).-

Bishop of Scranton Joseph F. Martino has called Sen. Bob Casey, Jr.’s role as commencement speaker at King’s College is “sad and disappointing” because the allegedly pro-life Democrat cannot “muster the courage” to oppose “the pro-abortion agenda” in Washington. King’s College, a Catholic institution in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, said the Senator will receive an honorary doctorate.

President of King’s College Father Thomas O’Hara, C.S.C., commented on the selection of Sen. Casey in a March 31 statement:

“From the time that Senator Casey taught fifth grade in a Philadelphia inner city school after graduating from college, he has been a great advocate of improving the quality of education.
“He is keenly aware of the issues important to the people he represents and provides great support to Northeast Pennsylvania on a federal level akin to state level support that his father obtained. The Caseys are a shining example of a family of faith who have dedicated their lives to public service. Throughout his career, Bob Casey has been guided by the legacy of his father’s principle that ‘all public service is a trust, given in faith and accepted in honor.’”

The Diocese of Scranton commented on Sen. Casey’s appearance in a May 1 statement.
The statement noted Sen. Casey’s vote to confirm Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services, which it called “an affront to all who value the sanctity of life.” It also described the governor as “a committed advocate of abortion.”

“It is the Bishop’s position that his vote on April 28 demonstrates that Sen. Casey is a reliable vote for President Barack Obama’s aggressive pro-abortion agenda,” the diocesan statement continued.

The statement then quoted Bishop Martino.

“Sen. Casey’s appearance at King’s graduation ceremony is sad and disappointing in view of his recent alignment with anti-life forces in the Senate and the highest offices of our government,” Bishop Martino said. “I do not believe he has the moral stature to stand before the graduates of a Catholic college to address them about their futures and the challenges they will face when on the most important issue of the day—the sanctity of human life—he cannot muster the courage to oppose the pro-abortion agenda which is currently being promoted in Washington.” (This is quite the statement. Might just as well have called Senator Casey a political prostitute.)

The bishop did note that the college’s decision to invite the Senator was made prior to his votes to confirm Gov. Sebelius and to rescind the Mexico City Policy, which allows taxpayer funding for organizations that promote or perform abortions overseas.

Before Senator Casey’s actions, Bishop Martino said, he had no objection to the invitation.
However, he said it is now “truly unfortunate” that the Catholic institution will appear to provide a forum for “a politician who is steadily distancing himself from pro-life principles and, sadly, from his father’s legacy as a statesman who championed the rights of the unborn.”

Sen. Casey’s father Gov. Bob Casey, Sr. was a pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania. He signed several abortion restrictions into law, a move which led to the 1992 Supreme Court decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He is believed to have been denied a speaking role at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because of his pro-life views.

Bishop Martino said he will continue to challenge Sen. Casey “whenever he fails to cast a vote or advance a position that will protect the most vulnerable in our society.” (The trouble with this is that Senator Casey was elected to represent all the people of his state, not just the unborn and one bishop.)

CNA contacted King’s College and was told it had no comment on Bishop Martino’s statement.
Sen. Casey is scheduled to be commencement speaker at King’s College on May 17.

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I posted the above because it's just one of a number of articles making the rounds on the 'official' Catholic news sites. Deal Hudson has an op/ed piece on his blog in which he makes it sound as if every bishop and 'real' Catholic in the land is appalled with Notre Dame. Unfortunately for Deal and his political party, sixty bishops is about 25% of the total number of our bishops and that coincides with the 25 or so percent of Catholics who actually are angry with Notre Dame, and that figure is also very close to the percentage of Americans who self identify as Republicans.

So that vast majority is really only one quarter of the Catholic population and episcopacy. The truth is, according to a recent PEW survey, almost twice as many Catholics haven't even heard of the Notre Dame controversy as those who oppose Notre Dame.

The reality is that the Notre Dame controversy is really a tempest in a conservative teapot. Bishop Martino's castigating of Senator Casey for catching the Sebelius disease is more of the same, but then not unexpected from a man who seems to have caught 'limelight' disease.

What I've found more interesting is the utter silence from these pro life stalwarts on the torture practices of the Bush regime. InsideCatholic.com has this bizarre piece written by David Carlin in support of the use of torture. It more or less makes the case for citizens to turn a blind eye to politicians who 'cut legal corners' for state security reasons. I was sort of speechless by the time I got to the end of the article. However, another blogger from Vox Nova was not speechless, and this person completely skewers the tortured logic in Carlin's article. Following the Vox Nova link is worth the read.

While reading on the Vox Nova website I found another statement which I wish I personally had written. This is from an article discussing the politicizing of American Catholicism and how weird this whole thing is to Catholics who don't live in the US. The author ends the piece with a warning about the mixing of Evangelical political thinking with pro life Catholicism:

"It’s high time for an emperor-has-no-clothes moment: the American Catholic Church is deviating from the global Catholic church in this area because the American Catholic church is increasingly aping the tactics and outlook of the politicized evangelical movement – an alliance forged two decades ago by Neuhaus and others. It is a movement based on a stark “us versus them” mentality, a dualistic mentality based on cultural Calvinism and a whiff of Gnosticism, a mentality directly translated into partisan rigidity, and where theological orthodoxy is confused with political loyalty. We are now reaping the fruit of this trend, and the fruit is rotten."

The fruit is indeed rotten. One of those signs of this rot is when Deal Hudson, who was the architect behind this mixing of pro life Catholics and Evangelicals, writes an article which conflates the minority view of Notre Dame into notions of a full scale Catholic revolt. The facts just don't support this notion. The facts seem to indicate that the only people Hudson is reaching are the already in the 'party' crowd. He certainly doesn't seem to have reached anyone in the Vatican which I guess makes Hudson's crowd more Catholic than the Vatican.

That's the problem with the political Evangelization of American Catholicism, it's more Catholic than the Vatican, just like protestant Evangelicals are convinced they are more 'saved' than mainline protestants and all Catholics. It really and truly is 'us' against everyone else.

My issue with this is that the 'us' folks truly think they should be able to dictate morality to everyone else, leading us by our moral noses, not to their promised land, but to a position where we give them all the power they want. We found out how well that worked under President Bush. The Republicans took Catholic pro life proponents to the cleaners while giving us sanctioned torture and illegal war as a moral principle, based not in Christian values, but in state security.

Pope Benedict is going to run into the same mentality this weekend in Israel. A mentality that seems to say state security is the only barometer on which nations need base their morality. It's not surprising that one of the biggest American supporters of the Israeli government is the Evangelical movement. For them this issue of Palestine is not about Jews, it's about the nation state of Israel and how it's existence signals the beginning of the final confrontation described in Revelations. Israel must prevail or Revelations is wrong. Keep this in mind when Benedict is in Israel and Palestine, because the political issues aren't just between Muslims and Jews, they also include Evangelical Christians whose theology is based in the Rapture, not Jesus.

In the meantime the real hot spot for me is in Pakistan. This is serious. Unlike Iran, Pakistan actually has nuclear weapons. The sudden upsurge in regional violence from the Taliban is a real security threat. This is the war we should have brought to a conclusion. I only hope the fall out from that mistake isn't greater than the world is willing to pay. The Bush legacy is bad enough without the destabilization of Pakistan courtesy of the Taliban.