Whenever Democrats mock George Bush for holding that human life
“begins at conception,” they will also be mocking their own
presidential candidate. John Kerry agrees with Bush. “I believe
life does begin at conception,” Kerry said this past weekend. “I
oppose abortion, personally. I don’t like abortion.” This also
echoes his wife’s comments earlier in the year when she let slip
that “I don’t view abortion as just a nothing” and that abortion
means “stopping the process of life.”
Catholic Democrats like Kerry assume that making this sort of
show of their personal moral distaste for abortion will make their
“pro-choice” views more respectable. But it only makes them more
disgraceful. Kerry can’t even claim lack of culpability on account
of cluelessness. He knows that abortion destroys a human life but
promotes a right to it anyway.
“Vatican II is very clear. There is something called freedom of
conscience in the Catholic Church,” said Kerry, once again mangling
Catholic teaching. It would come as news to the Pope that freedom
of conscience gives a Catholic permission not to have one.
Kerry is still relying on Mario Cuomo’s utterly lame and
unconvincing distinction between private faith and public duty. “I
can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith and legislate it
on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist,” said Kerry, as if killing
an unborn child is a prohibition peculiar only to Catholicism, a
prohibition akin to abstaining from meat on Good Friday. Kerry’s
public/private talking point is a sophistry most high school
debaters would be embarrassed to use. Will Kerry oppose laws
against bank robbery since the Catholic Church regards that act as
unjust? Will he say, “I can’t impose the Church’s opposition to
theft on non-Catholics”? You don’t have to be Catholic to oppose
abortion or theft or kidnapping, etc. Just human.
Kerry falls back on saying that priests shouldn’t influence
politics. He even once scolded the Pope for “crossing the line,”
saying, “it’s important to not have the Church instructing
politicians.” But why didn’t this secularist scruple apply to John
Kerry’s support for Fr. Robert Drinan and “Father” Aristide? As
long as the priest is politically liberal, Kerry will urge him to
instruct politicians and even become politicians themselves. Kerry
dropped out of a congressional race with Fr. Drinan out of
deference to the pro-abortion Jesuit.
Kerry says he doesn’t want any theology in politics. So why did
he praise the “liberation theology” Aristide introduced into
Haitian politics? (Kerry continued to call Aristide “Father” long
after he had been defrocked from his order, because Kerry hoped the
title would drum up political support for him in America.)
Kerry turns his Catholicism on and off like a tap, depending on
the political need of the moment. When abortion is discussed, his
faith is a private matter; when minimum wage comes up, his faith is
suddenly public again as he tries to shoehorn his liberal version
of Catholicism into the agenda of the Democratic Party. The most
stark example of this tactic was Kerry’s urging Americans to read
the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter on the economy, an amateur-hour
attack on Reaganomics by liberal bishops in the 1980s. “The
bishops’ pastoral letter is an important document which should be
read by Catholics and non-Catholics alike,” he said on the Senate
floor before placing the letter in the Congressional
Record.
Kerry can impose a faked-up socialist version of his faith on
the American people, then turn around and say that his Church’s
teaching on homicide is of no relevance to the public weal. If his
Catholicism shouldn’t influence his public duties, why does his
campaign website biography mention it in the third line?
Not so long ago Kerry, while campaigning in a church (“crossing
that line” is of course okay with him), caricatured Bush as a man
of empty faith, a man who talks about his religion but doesn’t act
on its civilized imperatives. The description fits Kerry far
better. His faith produces no civilized deeds on abortion and he is
proud of it, boasting to audiences of his 100% NARAL voting
record.
Later this month at the Democratic convention we can expect to
hear a great deal more about Bush’s faith but “no deeds,” as Kerry
puts it. We will hear about the human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib
on Bush’s watch. But we will not hear about the human rights abuse
of abortion, even though John Kerry knows what happens to unborn
children far more clearly than Bush knew what was happening to
prisoners in Iraq. Kerry will talk about applying the Geneva
Convention to prisoners of war, but he won’t dare talk about
applying the Ten Commandments for the protection of unborn
babies.
