Keep us in your prayers as we try to help pro-lifers across the country observe the 31st anniversary of the Supreme Court abortion ruling. As Fr. John Corapi put it, “The Devil donned a judicial robe.”
This unspeakable crime has already caused the deaths of 47,000,000 babies and is a national scandal and has cursed the nation. We cannot imagine anyone aware of having an immortal soul, and hoping to gain eternal salvation, not fighting abortion.
Bishop Burke Sets Example
That determination is one reason we are so happy to read the reports about Archbishop Raymond L. Burke’s warning to Catholic pro-abortion politicians in the Diocese of La Crosse, WI, that they cannot receive Holy Communion.
Not only did Burke write several candidates personally, but he published two documents, a pastoral letter, “On the Dignity of Human Life and Civic Responsibility,” then a second document, reprinted on January 8 in the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Times, warning politicians in his diocese not to receive Communion if they voted to support abortion or euthanasia. It instructs pastors not to give them Communion. He cites Canon 915, that those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.
An article in the January 18 Our Sunday Visitor says the Archbishop’s efforts are to bring about conversion of these Catholic politicians, and that Ed Peters, cannon lawyer and theology instructor at Michigan’s Ave Maria College, insists that the Archbishop is not making new law, but is simply applying current law and standard moral theology.
Peters thinks more bishops will follow Burke’s example: “There are other bishops in the country who understand the gravity of their responsibility for custody of the Eucharist.”
The Scandal of Catholic Pro-Aborts
David Carlin, writing in the same Jan. 18 issue of Our Sunday Visitor says pro-abortion Catholics give grave scandal in three ways:
- by suggesting that there is nothing seriously wrong with abortion
- by suggesting that the teaching authority of the Pope and the bishops can be disregarded with impunity, and
- by suggesting that what we have in America is “Cafeteria Catholicism” that allows Catholics to pick and choose their morality.
He says millions of the faithful have been waiting for years to see such an example of strong, decisive episcopal leadership on the abortion issue, and that they are seeing it in Archbishop Burke who will become head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis later this month.
The move to St. Louis means that his strong stance will be translated to that diocese, and that it will remain in full force in the Diocese of La Crosse. Incidentally, we are also included in the Jan. 18 issue of OSV with an interview with Ann Carey, and a mention in Gerald Korson’s editorial. The special pro-life issue is called “Signs of Hope.”
No Apologies for the Truth
Several people saw us recently on EWTN being interviewed by Fr. Frank Pavone, discussing Truth tours. Most of the comments have been positive, except for one gentleman from New Jersey who asked what kind of a “man of God” would cause emotional distress for women on their way to have an abortion?
For the most part Truth tours are not aimed at women on their way to abortion mills, but at the general public. And secondly, shortly after this interview Fr. Pavone, a “Man of God” by profession, conducted his own set of Truth tours in New York. We make no apologies for showing the truth, or making the public look at it.
