Abortion

A Florida Initiative, Abortion & The Lesson of Venezuela

The specter of Venezuela looms over a complacent American electorate. Mary Jo Anderson, a notable Catholic journalist and public speaker, gave a talk to an organization of Republican women in central Florida’s Volusia County on August 8. Her topic was Florida’s Amendment 4, a.k.a. Right to Abortion Initiative, a hot-button issue for discussion that preceded the group’s business meeting. The agenda included an introduction to Faustina Guzman-Trump [no relation to Donald], a Venezuela-born candidate for the office of Republican Committeewoman in the county. Continue Reading
Cordileone: Rosaries, Roses, & Reptiles

“O young Lochinvar is come out of the west”—West Coast, that is. You have likely read the media pas de deux between Nancy Pelosi and her ordinary, Archbishop Cordileone. Forgive me if I am unsympathetic to His Excellency’s current “Rose and Rosary for Nancy” gambit. The sell-by date for talk about killing innocent life in the womb expired in September with passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021. Once the clock ran out on the utility of words, it was time for canonical action. Continue Reading
USCCB Voter Guide: Clarity Be Damned

The USCCB’s voter guide, updated in advance of the 2020 election, was an evasive inventory of issues that, by sheer volume, effectively sidelined abortion. The manic jumble gave cover to Catholics who preferred abortion-happy Biden to Donald Trump. My essay “Politics As Spiritual Warfare”, in the November issue of Chronicles, cited a Wisconsin bishop’s slippery advice:
Doublespeak does not edify. Writing a column entitled, “How to vote according to our Catholic faith,” Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, Wisconsin repeats the USCCB’s position that “abortion surpasses all other moral issues,” though he adds a caveat.
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Three Women, Three Decisions Against Abortion

In the lead-up to Ireland’s abortion referendum, The Tablet, a Catholic weekly out of London, ran an overview of both sides of the debate. Lorna Donlon’s article was headlined “Ireland’s Very Personal Question.” But it begs the question: Just how personal is a woman’s decision to kill the life she is carrying? Is abortion no more than a matter of subjective preference? In a society that is serious about what is right, can the personal dimension overtake the moral? The article called to mind three women who had grasped the falsity of the feminist rallying cry: “It’s my body.” Continue Reading
Hesitance Comes For The Archbishop

A tragic fault line runs through the approach of the American bishops to the 2016 election. On one side lies their traditional sympathy for immigration, extended now to embrace what amounts to open-borders and a reluctance to distinguish between legal immigrants and illegal ones. On the other is the indispensable Catholic opposition to abortion. However much buttressed by religious language and attachments, one is a historically conditioned political position. The second is bedrock, a fundamental moral position the Church cannot abandon without losing its soul. Continue Reading