NYC Letter: Overwhelmed By Awesomeness, Part VII

Day 105 of CHOPE

Overwhelmedness. How else to explain this?

OBAMA APPROVAL HIGH AMONG
MUSLIMS, JEWS, AND CATHOLICS
Catholics Give Obama Higher Approval
Score Than Protestants

JUST NOT POSSIBLE
Moral Abstention Is Not Some Ecumenical Option

PRINCETON May 1, 2009 (Gallup) - Gallup Poll Daily tracking during President Obama's first 100 days in office finds broad support for him among Americans affiliated with most major U.S. religions. U.S. Muslims and Jews give Obama his highest job approval ratings, at 85% and 79%, respectively. He also receives solid majority support from Roman Catholics (67%) and Protestants (58%), and more approval [45%] than disapproval [40%] from Mormons.

THE STATE OF THE SECULAR STATE
Religion Counts For Little

What if not moral grounding is religion good for? Many American Catholics have come to believe they constitute some sort of American Catholic Church, a church without an episcopacy, a topsy-turvy church where the profane informs the sacred. Or worse, some sort of Personal Catholic Church with an episcopacy of one in which self-validated opinion trumps RCC doctrine and everyone else's opinion as well.

Now it is possible that Catholics as a group approve of deficits beyond comprehension, profligate government spending (and this), and European socialism. None of these put a Catholic out of communion with the Church. As a Catholic no matter how much you approve Mr. Obama's ruination of America, you cannot approve Mr. Obama's promotion and funding of abortion.*

Whether or not a Catholic quite grasps the doctrinal controversy between Homoousion and Homoiousion, there is no mincing the Church's position on abortion. Abortion, with the conditional exception of obstetrical abortion, is the wrongful taking of life. It is the most heinous deprivation of life because it is practiced against the helpless, the weak. The wrongful taking of life is murder, a moral evil, though polite pastoral instruction often omits these hard words. Mustn't make the "moderates" squeamish.

IS BARACK OBAMA REALLY PRO-LIFE?

(Catholics for Obama) - The answer is “yes.” Looking through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching, Senator Obama has spent his entire career striving for the common good. He supports health care programs that will cover all Americans, a living wage for working families, and solutions that allow distressed families to stay in their homes. And rather than trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, an ineffective strategy for 40 years, Senator Obama will reduce abortions. How? By promoting health care for pregnant women and better infant care, day care and job training. In fact, data has shown that social and education programs actually reduce abortions.

For a Catholic this is so much self-deluding twaddle. Stirring abortion into a purée of social programs does not attenuate its moral evil. Mr. Obama has taken pains to be plain about abortion as an uncontested good, starting with jettisoning the old Clinton "safe, legal, and rare" formulary** from the Democratic platform.

One possible explanation for the above poll results*** is that the responses represent the perduring goodwill Mr. Obama enjoyed going into office unfreighted by policy. [Pause.] Another is that a good many American Catholics are Episcopalians. [Pause.] Still another is the respondents on average approve of Mr. Obama's presidency and overlook abortion. Similarly, on average the French still fondly approve of Mr. Mitterand, the little matter of genocide notwithstanding.

CHOPE.

Pro-choice. Pro-Abortion. Pro-bama.

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* Also see this.

*** Gallup does not give the polling question, so we assume Gallup posed an up-or-down choice, approve or disapprove.