The Most Shameful Act in US Presidential History

The United States presidency, like any other institution populated by human beings, has had many scandals during its history.  For baby boomers like me, we automatically think of Watergate, in which President Richard Nixon was spying on American citizens and creating enemies lists and breaking into his opponents' offices, among other things.  And of course, we can't forget President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky doing their thing in the Oval office.

But at no time has any president in our history ever sunk lower than Barack Obama did when he spoke on April 26 at a conference for Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the United States.  According to the official "White House Blog", President Obama praised this group of ruthless baby killers for "reaffirming the core principle that has guided the organization for nearly a century: that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health."  Don't you just love the euphemisms?  Killing your baby is termed "making your own decision about your health."  Below is a picture of what "making their own decisions about their own health" looks like:

I do not like to post such pictures, but sometimes there is just no other way to make a point. This picture is what Planned Parenthood is all about. The President didn't speak about this. In fact, he never even said the word "abortion" in his 12 minute speech. He deftly used the phrase "right to choose." He tried very hard to convince us that Planned Parenthood is all about providing "healthcare" to women. He got caught on this during the presidential campaign last year when he said PP does mammograms. He finally had to admit this was not true. Yes, they do certain health screen testings, but the bulk of their "business", by far, is abortions. According to a cnsnews.com article, PP performed "333,964 abortions in fiscal 2011. That averages one abortion every 94 seconds." Obama actually tries to tell us that Planned Parenthood saves lives.  That's like saying Hitler was great for Germany because he improved the economy.

Many are upset that Obama would dare to speak at Planned Parenthood in the face of the Kermit Gosnell trial which is taking place in Philadelphia. This trial, of course, is about Dr. Kermit Gosnell who ran a house of horrors called an abortion clinic. At least one woman died as a result of a botched abortion, and he is accused of aborting babies alive and then killing them afterwards. From the Grand Jury Report:

This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths.

There can be no argument that Kermit Gosnell committed monstrous acts. But as a commentary from Matt Barber of WND says:

Let’s keep it real. The only difference between what happened in Gosnell’s Philadelphia clinic and what happens every day in Planned Parenthoods across the country can be measured by a matter of inches – by the child’s proximity to her mother in the room. Whether the baby is in the womb or 12 inches removed, a dead baby is a dead baby, right? So why all the drama? Relax. You know, Roe v. Wade and all.

Does it really make any difference whether a baby is killed in the womb or outside the womb? I know that legally it is the difference between being a murderer and a "healthcare provider" as Barry Obama tells us. But it makes absolutely no difference to the defenseless baby whose life is being snuffed out. In fact, Obama actually sees no difference at all as he plainly told us when, as an Illinois State Senator, he fought against the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act which would guarantee healthcare to babies who survived abortions. Obama was the only Illinois senator opposed to this bill. This is what he said at the time:

.. I just want to suggest... that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny.

Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a - child, a nine-month-old - child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. 

I mean, it - it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional.

So Obama actually is denying that the baby in the womb is a child, even if that "non-child" is able to survive a botched abortion. He insisted as a state senator that these aborted babies be left to die with absolutely no care whatsoever. Is he any different than Kermit Gosnell? The only difference I can see is that Gosnell immediately put these babies to death, albeit using horrendous methods, instead of throwing them in a corner and allowing them to die a slow, painful death, as then-Senator Obama would demand.

We have killed 55 million babies since 1973 in the United States alone. It is unfathomable to me that the President of the United States can actually stand up and praise the organization that has killed more of those babies than any other organization. In case you really don' t know what abortion is all about, watch this undercover video that was recorded at a large abortion clinic in The Bronx. It is one of the most chilling videos I have ever seen:

One of the reports from the Gosnell trial says that a baby was aborted into a toilet and tried to actually swim and save itself. In fact, according to the Grand Jury Report, "Other staff members confirmed that it was standard procedure for women to deliver fetuses – and viable babies – into toilets while patients and staff waited for Gosnell to arrive at the clinic." What is the difference between that and the abortion clinic counselor telling a woman that if she aborts a live baby at home, she should just "flush it." As the "counselor" tells us here, don't think about it, just do it.

Matt Barber summed it up well:

To “pro-choicers” it’s not that old Kermit did anything wrong; it’s just that he got caught doing it. He was careless. He pulled back the curtain of “reproductive freedom” to reveal abortion’s house of horrors. Kermit Gosnell is liberalism personified, and liberalism relies on deceit. The “progressive” culture is a culture of death. Moral relativism is as moral relativism does.

Speaking of moral relativism, on Friday the first sitting president in United States history gave the keynote address at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser. Nice timing. Even as the Gosnell mass-murder trial wraps up, Obama was lending the full weight of his presidency to a mass-murder celebration.

His message? All you Planned Parenthood-hating, anti-Gosnell right-wingers better listen up: “No matter how great the challenge, no matter how fierce the opposition, there’s one thing that the past few years have shown,” he promised. “That Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere. It’s not going anywhere today. It’s not going anywhere tomorrow.”

Yeah, we’ll see about that, slick.

Can there be any hope for a nation when its leader praises an organization whose main purpose is to kill unborn babies? The only reason we are still here is through the great mercy of God and the prayers of many faithful people. But I don't know how much longer our nation can survive when our president publicly and unashamedly supports the murder of babies. God have mercy on us all.

A Letter to President Barack Obama

Dear President Obama,

I, like millions of other Americans and people around the world, was completely horrified at the mass murder that took place in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.  It is hard to fathom the depth of evil that it takes to ruthlessly gun down a group of young, innocent children whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  My heart absolutely breaks for the parents, family and friends of these children, as well as for the other victims of these evil acts.  I can't even begin to know how to deal with something as tragic as this.

I watched the short speech you gave in reaction to this terrible shooting, and you did seem to be genuinely moved by the horror of this situation.  Your comment - "The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful, little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own" - was especially poignant.   

We all mourn the evil, tragic way in which these children died.   As you said, Mr. President, they had their entire lives ahead of them and it is a terrible thing that it was all taken away from them in such a gruesome manner.  But there are thousands of other children who are killed in our nation every day in even more gruesome, almost unimaginable ways.  And not only has our government legally sanctioned the murder of these most vulnerable, innocent lives, but you, Mr. Obama, have personally promoted this as a fundamental right, as you said on January 22, 2012:

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right.

Mr. Obama, here is a picture of what you say is a "fundamental constitutional right":

You called the murder of the innocent children in Connecticut a "heinous crime," and said you felt "overwhelming grief" at this horrible loss of life.  But if any of these children in Connecticut had been killed while they were still in their mothers' wombs, you would have applauded their murders as a "fundamental constitutional right."

You deplore the killing of these children by gunfire and said your heart was "broken", but you would have completely condoned their murder in the womb by being burned alive with saline solution or being torn apart limb by limb.  At the time of their births, you would have condoned a doctor delivering alive all but their heads from their mother's wombs and then murdering them by puncturing the base of their skull and crushing their heads.  And if somehow these children would have survived their attempted murder while in the womb, you would have insisted that they be given no medical care and left to die.  Knowing this makes it somewhat difficult to accept your statement that you and Michelle would "hug our children a little tighter and we’ll tell them that we love them, and we’ll remind each other how deeply we love one another."   

Mr. Obama, you also said in your statement, "These children are our children."  But you are the one who told us that you would fully support the deliberate murder of your own grandchildren because you would not want your daughters to be "punished with a baby" if they "made a mistake":



I'm sorry, Mr. Obama, but the words in your statement regarding the murders in Connecticut rang hollow and hypocritical.  You have never met an abortion you didn't like.  You have promoted the intentional killing of innocent life in the womb in every way possible.  You want young girls to have abortions without even notifying their parents.  You support paying for our military personnel to have abortions.  You have promoted and paid for abortions around the world.  You are persecuting the Catholic Church for their stand against abortion-inducing birth control.  As your own words tell us, you even support the killing of your potential grandchildren.

Mr. Obama, you told us that you don't even know when we "get human rights", as asked by Rick Warren:


Mr. Obama, as you said in your statement, the children murdered in Connecticut "had their entire lives ahead of them."  But so do the children in their mothers' wombs.  They, too, have "birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own" to look forward to.  Yet you and all who think like you feel it is a fundamental constitutional right to take all of that away from the most vulnerable of our citizens.  You said "our hearts are broken today--for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children" in Connecticut.  Well, my heart breaks every time I pray in front of one of those killing fields called abortion centers, and I see young women going in, with your full support, to have their babies murdered.

I will hold the murder victims in Connecticut and their families and friends in my prayers.  But I also pray for the victims of abortion and their families and friends.  I will pray that somehow, someway, you, Mr. President, will see that there is no difference between killing a child while he lies peacefully in his mother's womb or killing him several years later while he sits in a classroom.  I will pray that you will see that  there is no difference between killing a child by using a gun or by using an abortionist's tools.  A six year old child is the same child who grew in his mother's womb from the time of his conception.  Murder is murder, it is the taking of innocent life, no matter how or when it takes place.

Mr. Obama, let us mourn the loss of these innocent young children and the adult victims as well in Connecticut, but let us also mourn the "heinous murder" of the 60 million American children who have been legally killed in their mothers' wombs since 1973.

A Catholic's Gratitude for Barack Obama

Yesterday, November 22, was Thanksgiving Day in America.  This a day that has been set aside for all Americans to pause and give thanks for the blessings in our lives.  Originally it was to give thanks to our Creator, but since it is now basically against the law to mention Divinity in public, I guess we're suppose to just sort of thank each other.  But in recent years even giving thanks on this day has become moot.  Thanksgiving has become a time to watch football and/or go to to the mall and stand in line for Black Friday so we can get an iPad or flat screen TV really cheap.

Shoppers camping out at mall on Thanksgiving Day

The point of this post is not to lament the loss of the meaning of Thanksgiving and what that says about the sad state of our culture. That's for another time.  Notwithstanding what much of the rest of the nation does, I still like to use this day as originally intended and thank my Creator for all the many, many blessings I have received.  I thank Him for my faith, for my family and friends, for the fact that I still have a job in this economy, for the fact that we did not suffer the ravages of Hurricane Sandy as so many did here in the Northeast.  And I also thank God for the re-election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.

Oh yes, you read that correctly.  I, a serious Catholic who loves my faith above all else in my life, am grateful for President Barack Obama, an avowed enemy of the Catholic Church and everything that is holy and sacred.   I am saying that the re-election of Barack Obama, while not a good thing for Catholics, was absolutely necessary if any part of our Church is going to survive in this once great nation.

Before you decide that I have completely lost my mind and move to something else, read on a bit.  Up until the election of Barack Obama, most Catholics, and specifically our bishops and priests, sort of sat back and let things happen.  Our nation legalized the killing of our babies in 1973.  There has been outrage here and there, and admittedly many good Catholic groups were raised up to fight this terrible evil such as the Priests for Life and the Sisters of Life, but for the most part we rarely heard about this holocaust from our pulpits.  The vast, vast majority of Catholics (well over 90%) used birth control, yet next to nothing was said about this.  Millions of Catholics were living together without benefit of marriage, but silence pretty much reigned supreme on this subject as well.  

Militant homosexuals were gaining ground and making themselves accepted by general society, and not only was little being said, but to the contrary, a fair number of Catholic Churches were proudly proclaiming themselves "inclusive" and welcoming sexually active homosexuals into their parishes.  The Church did get what should have been a wake-up call when the sexual abuse crisis hit.  She was forced to admit that there were renegade clergy in her ranks, but nothing much changed in her message to the faithful and the rest of the world.  The vast majority in the Church quietly continued along on what seemed to be a path of self destruction.

Father Frank Pavone

Then came Barack Obama, put into office by the Catholic vote in 2008.  There were most definitely voices from the Church warning us of the danger in doing so.  I remember a Youtube video from Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life the day after the 2008 election in which he gave us a very dire warning:

Barack Obama has been elected the new president of the United States, and this is one of the biggest mistakes that the American people have made in the entire history of our nation.

And the many reasons why that's true, will come to light as the months go on. But the biggest reason why that's true, is that here, we have a president elect who cannot tell the difference between serving the public and killing the public.

He is, as you know, the most ardent supporter of the so called 'Right to Abortion', in an unrestricted way, throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason, or no reason at all. This is the man who said, 'I don't know when human rights are attached to a baby.' Well if you don't know when human rights begin, you're in no position to govern a country that was founded on the principle of human rights.

We saw how prophetic Father Pavone was when newly sworn-in President Obama's first executive order was to overturn the Mexico City policy put into effect by President Ronald Reagan, and allow funding for overseas abortion.  This was only the first of hundreds of actions on the part of the Obama administration in promoting abortion and other intrinsic evils.  The crowning achievement of the Obama administration is Obamacare, which allows, nay enforces federal funding of contraception, sterilization and abortion.  Of course this bill also requires all employers to provide, via insurance coverage, free contraception and morning after pills to their employees regardless of the employer's personal beliefs.  We must not forget that Obama is also our first president to openly support homosexual rights and same sex marriage.

We have seen the bishops come fully awake under President Barack Obama.  They have had no choice but to acknowledge to the world that the Catholic Church is under siege from the government.  Unlike the 2008 election, bishop after bishop has been announcing from the pulpit that Catholics cannot vote for politicians who openly support abortion and other intrinsically evil practices.  Because of the HHS Mandate, the bishops have been forced to talk about birth control, some for the first time in their ministries.  They have to tell the faithful and the rest of the world that the Catholic church views birth control as evil and that use of it endangers the salvation of souls.

Here is a screenshot from pewsitter.com from just before the election, showing several headlines about bishops warning of voting for Barack Obama:

Bishop John Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois

Our bishops are now talking about salvation and sin and even hell, subjects that seemed to have been taboo and forgotten by large portions of the Church for the last decades.  We are hearing about the need to make our faith and our Savior the central point of our lives.  Bishops are taking responsibility for the grave crisis we have seen in the Church in the last decades.  In a response to the HHS Mandate back in April 2012, Timothy Cardinal Dolan made a huge admission:

In a frank interview with the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and is increasingly being billed as America’s leading Catholic cleric, says the Church has failed to communicate its moral teachings in the area of sexuality. He says further that the fault lies with Church leaders.

“I’m not afraid to admit that we have an internal catechetical challenge—a towering one—in convincing our own people of the moral beauty and coherence of what we teach. That’s a biggie,” said Dolan.

“We have gotten gun-shy . . . in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality,” he added.

The Church’s own failure to communicate its teachings on contraception has been one of the leading tools used against it in its fight against Obama’s mandate, with critics repeatedly pointing out that the majority of Catholic women are using some form of contraception.

Cardinal Dolan

There is the recent speech given at the Bishops' Conference by Cardinal Dolan in which he did not specifically mention the war being waged by President Obama against the church, but Cardinal Dolan did say that in response to these times in which there are so many lapsed Catholics, we need to once again emphasize the Sacrament of Penance, starting with the Bishops themselves, as a pathway to reconversion. As he said at the end of his speech:

With this as my presidential address, I know I risk the criticism. I can hear it now: "With all the controversies and urgent matters for the Church, Dolan spoke of conversion of heart through the Sacrament of Penance. Can you believe it?"

To which I reply, "You better believe it!"

First things first!

This theme was very much echoed by Cardinal Charles Chaput of Philadelphia in which he said that "Being a Saint is the Only Thing that Matters".  As the Cardinal stated:

“More than 70 million Americans describe themselves as Catholics. But for all practical purposes, they’re no different from everybody else in their views, their appetites and their behaviors.”

Cardinal Chaput went on to say that Catholics need to get back to basics:

“So we need to ask ourselves: What do I want my life to mean? If I claim to be a Catholic, can I prove it with the patterns of my life? When do I pray? How often do I seek out the Sacrament of Penance? What am I doing for the poor? How am I serving the needy? Do I really know Jesus Christ?”

“Who am I leading to the Church? How many young people have I asked to consider a vocation? How much time do I spend sharing about God with my spouse, my children and my friends? How well and how often do I listen for God’s will in my own life?”

One of the most important results of Barack Obama's re-election as president is that more and more Catholics are realizing that our salvation, both physical and spiritual, is not in politics, as shown in this editorial from catholicculture.org entitled "The End of Pro Life Politics.  As Dr. Jeff Mirus writes:

Have we as pro-life Catholics been wrong to invest the lion’s share of our time, talent and energy in the political battle against abortion over the past forty years? Or even if we have not been wrong the whole time, are we wrong now? Perhaps it is obvious that I believe the answer is yes. It ought to be clear by now that Western culture is insufficiently healthy to sustain a political solution to abortion. Therefore, it is counter-productive to pour our resources into the effort to achieve such a solution. We must use our resources far more wisely than that.

Dr. Mirus writes:

The time has come to admit the obvious and, in consequence, to speak the unspeakable. Is it not clear now that the social order as we know it in the West is utterly incapable of sustaining successful pro-life politics? The evidence is overwhelming. First, there is again the remarkable lack of success over the past forty years despite the staggering resources expended in the cause. Second, in the United States at least, this lack of success seems to conflict with polls that repeatedly show a majority of voters to prefer restrictions on abortion—which proves that such voters do not regard abortion as significant enough to influence their votes. Third, as indicated at the outset, the number of other serious social and political challenges which have so rapidly emerged in recent years are clear signs that our mainstream culture has problems far deeper than a disagreement about how to handle the question of legal abortion.

It is no longer satisfactory—in fact I would say it is disingenuous—to stress (for example, in response to the Obama juggernaut) that we simply need to go back to the trenches and mobilize more people and more resources in the same political effort next time around. Twenty-five years ago this seemed to make sense. Ten years ago people were reluctant to suggest that it did not. Today, anybody who thinks this is a reasonable response to the problems we face either has his head in the sand or possesses a vested interest in the economic viability of one or more of the many pro-life organizations which—almost certainly through no great fault of their own—simply cannot succeed.

What does Dr. Mirus see as the proper response to the evil surrounding us and the persecution of the Catholic Church?

Personally, I do not see this as cause for alarm, just as I do not see it as anything new. I think, rather, that we are just beginning to see our situation as it really is, after a generation and more of intense confusion over the signs of the times. This misreading of the signs has unfortunately caused us to waste enormous amounts of energy fighting not so much for Christ as for political outcomes which cannot be sustained without Christ. This does not mean that we must despair, though we are very likely in for a rough time. Nor does it mean, obviously, that we are absolved from voting morally. But it does mean that we ought to expend our greatest energies elsewhere, in widespread efforts to strengthen the Church, to develop our own Christian subculture complete with vibrant intermediary institutions, to evangelize our neighbors, and to offer practical service to any and all who, increasingly ill-served by a bureaucratic pagan State, may turn to us in their need.

This is, in fact, exactly what Christians had to do in the early centuries of the Church (and what they must never fail to do at any time, even when things happen to be going better politically). In other words, the answer to the disturbing question with which I opened this essay is clear. This is not the time to place the emphasis on politics, any more than it was time for politics when Karol Wojtyla was growing up in Poland. This is the time for Faith and family, evangelization and the formation of Christian culture.

This is not the time to waste immense resources and energies on political efforts which our larger Western culture cannot possibly sustain. It is rather a time to grow in Faith, evangelize those around us, and form vibrant local cultures which draw our neighbors into the light of Christ.

The re-election of Barack Obama has forced the Catholic Church to face reality with no place to hide.  Our enemy is firmly in control.  The GOP has made it it quite clear that they are no longer going to fight, if they ever did. The war started by Barack Obama against the Catholic Church will continue unabated and for all intents and purposes, unopposed by the Republicans.  As Politico told us two days after the election:

House Speaker John Boehner made it official Thursday: Obamacare isn’t going anywhere.

In an interview with ABC News, Boehner seemed to suggest the election ended any efforts to wipe out the whole law. When “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer asked if there would be any more votes to repeal the law, Boehner said “the election changes that” and “Obamacare is the law of the land.”

If Mitt Romney had defeated Barack Obama, many Catholics would have heaved a sigh of relief with the belief that we will live to see another day.  We would have comforted ourselves with the thought that Romney would appoint the right judges to the Supreme Court who would make everything right.  God would come back into the public square.  The HHS Mandate would be lifted, and the Catholic Church could once again go about her business unimpeded.  In other words, we could put the blinders back on as to the real condition of the nation and our Church.

An Obama administration leave us with nowhere to hide and forces us to face our own spiritual nakedness.  We need to acknowledge and repent of the fact that the problems we as a Church face in 2012 are largely the result of both our own actions and inactions of the last 50 years   Catholics are realizing that while Barack Obama is the face of our enemy, our real fight is not against him.  Our fight is against our own disbelief and rejection of Church teachings, our lack of dependence upon and faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, and our indifference to the sin in our lives and our lack of repentance for it.  The solutions to our problems are spiritual, not political.

The message we are getting from our bishops and other leading voices in the Church is that the answer to the spiritual crisis in which we find ourselves is to rediscover our Catholic roots. We need to become Catholics again.

The best days of the United States are behind us.  We are headed for very dark and troubling times. The Culture of Death is firmly ensconced in our nation and our entire world, and all those who oppose it will be persecuted.  The Obama administration is not the cause of the great evil that we face but the symbol of it. As the Apostle Paul told us 2000 years ago:

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.  (Ephesians 6:12)

Barack Obama has galvanized the Church in a way no one and nothing else has been able to do and made us realize that we are in the fight of our lives, both physically and spiritually.  And that is why I as a Catholic am thankful for Barack Obama.

Pray for our bishops and priests that they will have the courage and fortitude to stand up to the evil that we all face, and pray for your own soul as well.  St. Paul gave us our marching orders in Ephesians 6:13-18:

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

¡Viva Cristo Rey! ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

Abortion: Obama vs. Romney

In 2004, Alan Keyes ran against Barack Obama for US Senator in Illinois.  The Obama machine successfully painted Ambassador Keyes (US ambassador to the UN from 1981-1985), who is a devout pro-life Catholic, as a kook and extremist, and took advantage of the fact that he was from out of state to call him a carpetbagger.  Obama won that race, and used that position to run for US President in 2008, just 3 short years after being sworn in as US Senator.  We now have the most inexperienced and at the same time, the most radical President in the White House this country has ever seen.  

Ambassador Keyes has tried to warn us about Barack Obama and the harm he will do to this country.    Below is a video from a debate between Barack Obama and Ambassador Keyes when they were running for senator.

Now Dr. Keyes has written an excellent editorial for Renew America in which he discusses the troubling positions of both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama on the issue of abortion.  I have posted his opinion piece below.

October 22, 2012 

Regarding abortion: what both Obama and Romney want us to forget

By Alan Keyes

A Christiannews.net story reports that "Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has released a new television advertisement underscoring his support for abortion and contraception." According to the report, "the thirty second advertisement, geared toward women voters, features Sarah Minto, who outlines that she had concerns about Romney's 'extreme' abortion views until she realized that he wasn't completely opposed to abortion after all."

When I read reports about a candidate's stand on abortion, I do a little mental exercise that serves as a preliminary test of my judgment about its moral validity. I review the description of their stand, substituting the word "slavery" for the word "abortion." In this case, the result is a television advertisement that has Romney underscoring "his support for slavery..." and a voter relieved because "she had concerns about Romney's abolitionist views until she realized that he wasn't completely opposed to slavery after all."

To anyone who has bothered to review the consistent pattern of Romney's stance on abortion, this report should come as no surprise. But such a Romney campaign advertisement ought to be a wake-up call for all the supposedly pro-life "leaders" and voters comforting themselves with the false pretense that he's "pro-life."

Romney's stand on abortion is very like the stand on slavery taken by Abraham Lincoln's nemesis, Stephen Douglas. Throughout his career, Douglas took care to reassure the proponents of slavery that he was no abolitionist. He supported the rights of slave owners, and the prerogatives of the slave states. Douglas worshiped at the altar of "popular sovereignty." So he held to the view that justice is whatever the will of the majority says it is, even when the majority's will contradicts the premise of God-endowed right that is the basis for the majority's right to make such decisions (i.e., its right to government based upon consent).

It's ironic these days that the very people who clamor for "minority rights" when race or money are the rubric suddenly adopt the Douglas "majority rule" position on an issue like abortion. They are ready to decry the notion that might makes right when the rich and powerful abuse the poor and relatively powerless. But nascent children, bereft of every form of wealth or power but their simple humanity, may be murdered at the whim of individuals who happen to be stronger than they are, so long as a majority can be found willing to support or tolerate such murders.

Because Stephen Douglas was willing to tolerate restrictions on slavery established by majority whim, we could argue that he was not pro-slavery. The problem is, of course, that if one community makes slaves, and another community annuls what they have made, whose view determines when and whether a slave must be treated as such? Or, in the case of abortion, if one community makes human beings, and another denies their humanity, whose will determines when and whether their humanity must be respected? (As we will see, America's answer is that neither community gets to decide, for the Creator has already determined what both must respect.)

People like Mitt Romney assert that in this case or that the will of the majority of the people; or the majority of the judges and justices; or even the majority of one mother and one doctor ready to accept her rule, can strip away every human offspring's title of humanity. Yet the original claim to the title of humanity has the same basis for their offspring as it does for those who claim the right to murder them. If, on this basis, Romney and others hold that people may be treated as non-human for purposes of coldblooded murder, why do they pretend to deny that, on the same "majority rule" basis, people may be treated as non-human for the purposes of slavery, racial perfection, or religious purity? Of course they will indignantly exclaim that "Racism and religious fanaticism are unacceptable grounds for inhumanity." But it's patently absurd to suggest that lust, ambition, and personal convenience are acceptable motives for inhumanity, but not the desire to perfect the species or assure its path to eternal salvation. It's plainly irrational to pretend that humanity may be abused so that perishable individuals can feel free, by all means, to make money and fornicate, but not so that the species as a whole can perfect itself for all eternity.

Eventually, of course, the illogic of this irrational absurdity will give way to the more consistent and plainly evil logic hidden within it. Today, people like Barack Obama and Mitt Romney pretend they are just offering some individuals the right to sweep aside the constraints implied by our respect for common humanity. But we live still in the shadow of fanatical political, social, and religious ideologies who claim that right on behalf of the progress or salvation of humanity itself. When asserted on the strength of these more comprehensive motives, all the imperious reasons for totalitarian inhumanity are again unleashed (as they were in the 20th century), motives such as: perfecting the evolution of the race; fulfilling the project of History; or converting all people to a path that leads humanity to godhood.

I cringe when I hear the rhetoric (either malicious or simply stupid) that characterizes opposition to all dehumanizing murder as an "extremist" view. So now the people who believe that dehumanizing murder "should be an option," in this case or that, are the "moderates"? With the massive atrocities of the 20th century still fresh in human experience; with the spirit of terrorist atrocity every day overshadowing our lives, what madness possesses those who think that the license thus given to individuals to murder millions of human offspring will not soon again extend itself to renew the open, systematic slaughter aimed generally at all rest of the children of men who refuse some goal of the collective will?

I stand by the principles of America's founding largely because they articulate an understanding of justice that precludes the sick delusion that it can ever be right or optimal to read some people out of the human race so that others may have license to abuse and murder them. Whether they are many or few, whether they are powerful or weak, whether they are spurred by overweening pride and ambition, or by justifiable resentment against the abuses such pride and ambition can cause, people have no authority to take away what it is never in their power to alter or abolish. That authority belongs to the Creator God, and God alone.

It's telling that these days, the loudest complaints against those who invoke God's authority in the way America's founders did, come from people who are, even as they speak, asserting the right to act like God when it comes to authorizing dehumanizing murders. Perhaps the most salutary effect of the founders' acknowledgement of God's authority is that it reveals the lie at the heart of any human claim to wield such authority. To anyone who wishes to usurp the Creator's throne, whether it be a tyrant dictator or a tyrant people; or a tyrant dictator claiming to act for the people, there is one right the American people may always claim with certainty, and with certainty never surrender, and that is the right to tell them, by word and deed, that they are wrong. But what Obama, Romney and all the proponents of dehumanizing murder, in any case, really want us to forget is this: We cannot claim the right, from God, to limit abuses of right by others unless, for God's sake, we first exercise the right by limiting our own abuses.

As I have posted, I will be voting for Mitt Romney, more as a vote against Obama than for Romney.  But I'm not kidding myself as far as Ronney's positions are concerned.  We should not be surprised at Romney's positions on abortion.  Just a few years ago he was completely pro choice, saying he would always support a woman's "right to choose."  We can't be sure if he has truly changed his position or just taken a politically expedient stand on abortion when he now says he would like to see Roe v. Wade  overturned. However, we must be realistic.  Romney has actually told us that the issue of abortion is not part of his agenda.  We need to listen to that and realize that in all probability, nothing in regard to abortion is going to change under a Romney administration.

The reason I am voting is because I am convinced that it is my Catholic obligation to vote.  But I still believe that the only way real and important change will come to this country and that the only salvation for our country is getting on our knees before our Creator, repenting of the evils in our land and begging His forgiveness.

A Catholic's Obligation To Vote

I have been posting throughout this election season that there is no real choice between the two parties, and that it is basically a waste of time to even bother voting.  I have had many discussions with very good and devout Catholics who have tried to convince me just how wrong I am, that it is our Catholic duty to vote.  I have given this subject a good amount of thought and prayer, and after doing some research, I am convinced that as a Catholic, it is our obligation to vote, especially when faced with such blatant evil as we see in Barack Obama and the Democratic party.

So I am here and now doing a "mea culpa", meaning "I was wrong", sort of.  I'm still not convinced that when you take away all the trappings that there is a whole lot of difference between the Democrats and Republicans, but there is no denying that the Republicans at least say all the right things, while the Democrats are so far out that they can't even be considered.  So even though I will have to hold my nose, I am going to vote in this election, and for president, I will, of course, vote the Romney/Ryan ticket, more as a vote against Obama than a vote for Romney, because not to vote at all is the same as casting a vote for Barack Obama.

Catholic Apologetics gives an excellent explanation of why Catholics are obligated to vote:

In an allocution to the Congress of the International Union of Catholic Women’s Leagues, September 11, 1947, the Pope [Pius XII] spoke of the gravity of the obligation for all. He insisted that those who would not take part would be guilty of serious sin. “There is a heavy responsibility on everyone, man or woman, who has the right to vote, especially when the interests of religion are at stake; abstention in this case, in itself, it should be thoroughly understood, is a grave and fatal sin of omission. On the contrary, to exercise well, one’s right to vote is to work effectively for the good of the people, as loyal defenders of God and of the Church.”

Catholic Apologetics goes on to give us more examples of prelates who declare voting to be an obligation all all Catholics:

In the important elections of June, 1951, nearly all the bishops of France issued pastoral letters on the duty of voting. In printing a selection of these statements, La Croix said it was impossible to quote them all. They were cast in similar terms, insisting (1) upon the duty of voting and (2) upon the duty of voting only for those candidates who were prepared to support spiritual values and in particular to support a true freedom of choice in education that would make it possible for parents to send their children to Catholic Schools. Such were the statements of Cardinal Gerlier and Cardinal Lienhart. 

Archbishop Feltin of Paris said that to abstain was treason. [82] Archbishop Richaud of Bordeaux declared that no one was free from grave sin for not voting unless it were actually impossible for him to do so.  Archbishop Lefebre of Bourges said there was no excuse for abstaining simply because one had been disappointed with the performance of a party in which he had placed his hopes.  Bishop Jaquin of Moulins reminded his flock that none could do anything that would favor Communism, while Bishop Mathieu of Aire and Dax declared that it was not enough simply to register a vote against Communism, since the French Socialist Party had always shown a constant malevolent opposition to Catholic ideals. 

When the French people failed to vote in the elections of October 7, 1951, several members of the Hierarchy issued statements condemning such indifference. Cardinal Gerlier, Archbishop of Lyons, and Cardinal Lienart, Bishop of Lille, were particularly outspoken. “To vote,” said Cardinal Lienart, “is a serious obligation, abstention from which would be a sin. Each person has one vote. If he does not express his wishes by casting his ballot, it is equivalent to giving an extra vote to the opposition. One does not escape his responsibilities as a citizen by not voting, he increases them.” 

There is absolutely no way for a Catholic in good conscience to vote for Barack Obama or 99.99% of the Democratic Party in the United States.  As I have shown in other posts, they are the party of death, not only supporting but actually celebrating such issues as abortion, contraception and homosexuality, all in direct defiance of the Catholic Church and the Law of Almighty God.  Whatever good they may promote is completely overshadowed by their anti-morality, anti-God positions.

So we are left with the Republicans.  I have complained mightily here that I feel they are really no different than the Democrats.  They give lip service to what is right and good, but they never seem to follow through.  The GOP Presidential Candidate, while proclaiming to be pro life, says he supports abortion in cases of rape, incest and the health and life of the mother.  He supports homosexuals in the Boy Scouts, he supports same sex civil unions as long as they are not called marriage.  He supports the National Defense Authorization Act, which gives the president the legal right to imprison any American for an indefinite length of time with no charge and no trial.  I find many of Mitt Romney's views to be troubling, to say the least.

BUT, and this is a huge BUT, in contrast to his opponent, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney is a breath of fresh air.  Barack Obama is the personification of complete opposition to everything the Catholic Church supports and teaches.  And in no surprise, he is a direct enemy of the Catholic Church, trying to force us to go against our own teachings.  He is surrounded by apostate Catholics, such as Kathleen Sibelius, the HHS Secretary who is enforcing the HHS Mandate and Vice President Joe Biden, who publicly supported same sex marriage even before Barack Obama did, and who says that while he supports the pro life teachings of the Church, he cannot impose those views on others.

As Catholics, we have only one choice in this presidential election, and it ain't the Democrats.  Mitt Romney, for all his faults, did pick one of the most pro-life Catholic politicians available as his running mate - Rep. Paul Ryan.  He is a good and devout Catholic who I believe can be counted on to always support the teachings of the Church.  I have certainly disagreed with some of his actions, but when compared to the Democrats, he is like an angel of God.

The Catholic Church itself is restrained from telling us specifically whom we should support.  But as Bishop John Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois told us:

I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against, but I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.

To sum up, we are told by the Church that we have a responsibility to vote, and we are also told that our choice could literally affect our own personal salvation.

I am still not totally convinced that there is any real difference among Democratic and GOP leaders. But at least the Republicans do not overtly support anti-life and anti-Catholic values.  And there are most definitely those GOP candidates who have shown great courage in going against the mainstream, such as Todd Akin of Missouri and Joe Walsh of Illinois, who just recently said that abortion is wrong in all situations.

I have looked at the presidential candidates, and have come to the conclusion that despite my misgivings about Mitt Romney, not to vote for him is to vote for Barack Obama, and I cannot do that.  Barack Obama is the personification of everything for which I, as a Catholic, stand in complete opposition.  To give Barack Obama another four years is to condemn our nation to total destruction.  Mitt Romney will not solve all of our problems.  He may not solve any of our problems, but I do believe a Romney/Ryan administration will give us a reprieve and mitigate some of the terrible punishment that is due our nation for turning its back on God.

To quote again from Catholic Apologetics:

In a discourse to the Pastors and Lenten Preachers of Rome March 16, 1946, [Pope Pius XII] gave this advice:

The exercise of the right to vote is an act of grave responsibility, at least when there is the question involved of electing those whose office it will be to give the country its constitutions and its laws, particularly those which effect, for example, the sanctification of feast days, marriage, family life and school, the various phases of social life. It therefore falls to the Church to explain to the faithful their moral duties which derive from their right to vote. [11]

To the same body of clergy he spoke two years later (March 10, 1948) and with even more emphasis. His words were the following:

It is your right and duty to draw the attention of the faithful to the extraordinary importance of the coming elections and to the moral responsibility which follows from it for those who have the right to vote. In the present circumstances it is strictly obligatory for whoever has the right, man or woman, to take part in the elections. He who abstains, particularly through indolence or cowardice, commits thereby a grave sin, a mortal offense.

On November 6, I will be going to the polls along with millions of other Americans to cast my vote.  If you are a Catholic, you are under obligation to do the same.

Hold your nose and get out there and vote.

Religion and Politics: A Deadly Mix For Religion

Mixing politics and religion makes me a little queasy.  Politics are always corrupt, so I'm not worried about any harm to politicians, but why would someone whose purpose is to serve God and save souls want to get involved in the matters of this world other than preaching the Word of God and showing people the way to salvation. 

Things have always been different in Europe since the times of Constantine in the fourth century when the Roman Emperor decided it was better to join forces with the Christians as opposed to fighting them, which only seemed to give the Christians even more strength.  Europe became Catholic in nature and the Church always had great influence in those who governed.  Many feel that Christendom ended with the French Revolution in the 18th Century.  Certainly the history of Europe since that time has been one bloody fight after another reaching a climax in the 20th Century with WWII.  Europe's slide into atheistic secularism has been on a fast track since then.

John F. Kennedy and Pope Paul VI

The Catholic Church has never had the influence in America that it had in Europe.  Despite the fact that many point to the Judeo-Christian ethic that this country was supposedly founded upon, Catholics have always been viewed with suspicion and were actively persecuted in most of the 19th Century.  Governor Al Smith of New York, who lived from 1873 to 1944, was rejected as a presidential candidate when he ran in 1928 because of his Catholicism.  Even in 1960, when John F. Kennedy ran for president, Catholicism was still viewed as a danger to the country and he was forced to distance himself from the Catholic Church. 

But despite all of this, politicians have always and continue to court the Catholic vote just because there are so many of us.  And in this 2012 presidential election both the Democrats and Republicans are trying to cozy up to the Catholic vote. 

I have just recently posted on the scandal involving Cardinal Dolan's invitation to pro-abortion President Barack Obama.  His Eminence says he is doing this:

[T]o show both our country and our Church at their best: people of faith gathered in an evening of friendship, civility, and patriotism, to help those in need, not to endorse either candidate. Those who started the dinner sixty-seven years ago believed that you can accomplish a lot more by inviting folks of different political loyalties to an uplifting evening, rather than in closing the door to them.

Cardinal Dolan is living in a fantasy world if he thinks that he can "make nice" with any politician whose avowed purpose is to destroy the Catholic Church.   No politician ever shows his true face, especially to those whom he considers to be his enemy.  And have no doubt, Barack Hussein Obama considers the Catholic Church to be his worst enemy. Personally, I don't think Mitt Romney has a whole lot of love for the Catholic Church, either. 

The New York Times just recently ran an article focusing on how the Republicans are pushing for the Catholic Vote by trying to make nice with Cardinal Dolan, head of the US Bishops, and that Cardinal Dolan seems to be positively responding to them.  The article also cites the Democrats as pursuing the Catholic vote as well.

Invitation to Cardinal Shows G.O.P.’s Catholic Push

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

August 24, 2012

Some benedictions bestow a bigger blessing than others, and Mitt Romney hit the jackpot by signing up Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, to deliver the closing prayer at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., next week.
 

The move is perhaps the clearest sign of a more aggressive push by Republicans to win over Roman Catholic voters this election cycle. Four years ago, Barack Obama won the votes of a majority of Catholics, assisted in part by his Catholic running mate, Joseph R. Biden Jr. [I would have to take exception to this statement.  I highly doubt that any Catholic, practicing or not, voted for Barack Obama on the basis of his presidential candidate, Joe Biden.]

But this time the Republicans sense an opportunity to cut into that advantage, at least with moderate and independent Catholics, because of two recent developments: President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage and the standoff between the Obama administration and Catholic bishops over the requirement that Catholic hospitals and schools must provide coverage for birth control in their employee health insurance plans. The issue has become the centerpiece of a campaign by the bishops to defend what they consider a matter of religious liberty. [I have stated previously that this is a losing strategy on the part of the bishops.  By making this issue one of "religious liberty" instead of what it is, which is one of good versus evil, they are denying the reality of what is actually happening and turning it into a secular issue.] 

The Obama campaign is aggressively contending for Catholic voters too, and the rivalry has been sharpened this year because Catholics are in the vice-presidential slot on both tickets.  [This is a very debatable statement.  Everything Joe Biden does and says is in complete opposition to the teachings of the Church.  To call him "Catholic" is like calling a wax flower a plant.]  Mr. Biden and the Republican challenger, Representative Paul D. Ryan, represent competing factions within their own church: Mr. Biden places a premium on the church’s social justice tradition of caring for the needy, while Mr. Ryan champions church teaching against abortion and same-sex marriage. Both are accused by their critics of being “cafeteria Catholics” willing to abandon the church teachings they do not politically support.

Mr. Romney had been courting Cardinal Dolan since April. That month, the two had a private meeting, previously undisclosed, at the chancery in New York, across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, said Peter G. Flaherty, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign who is Catholic and who served as Mr. Romney’s liaison to the religious community when he was governor of Massachusetts.

“We’re going to have outreach to Catholics in a coordinated, organized effort — state by state, diocese by diocese, parish by parish and pew by pew,” Mr. Flaherty said in an interview.  [And they're going to conveniently leave out all of Romney's past anti-
Catholic positions.]

 

He added that Mr. Romney, a Mormon, had close ties with Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and traveled to Rome for the ceremony at which the prelate was made a cardinal. But Mr. Romney sought out Cardinal Dolan to give the benediction at the convention, Mr. Flaherty said, because of his stature as president of the bishops’ conference and his proclamations that religious liberty is at risk because of Obama administration policies. Mr. Romney has echoed this theme on the campaign trail and in a television advertisement. [This video is a bit of a joke.  It talks about the assault on religious freedom by Obama, then includes a clip of Romney quoting JPII as saying "Be Not Afraid."  But it doesn't tell us what Romney plans to do about the "assault on religious freedom."]

It is also the message of a slickly produced video aimed at religious voters that the Romney campaign says it did not produce but that clearly helps its cause. The video juxtaposes people entering a voting booth with a blacksmith forging the words “life,” “marriage” and “freedom” in a raging fire, and it ends by asking, “Will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire?” There are two versions of the video, one for Catholics and one for evangelicals. The evangelical version has been viewed fewer than 30,000 times, while the Catholic version has been seen more than 1.9 million times.

 

Here is the video if you want to watch it.  Frankly, I feel insulted by it.  This video names the important issues, but gives no promises that the Republicans will do things any differently than the Democrats have done.

Catholics make up about a quarter of the electorate, but they hardly vote as a bloc any longer [this shows how the Church herself has become fragmented, some still following Church teaching, but the vast majority becoming their own magesterium and deciding what is right or wrong]. The Catholic vote is instead a bellwether that mirrors the general electorate. Exit polls showed that in 2008 Mr. Obama prevailed among Catholic voters by nine percentage points.

This time, Gallup’s daily tracking poll, taken from July 30 to Aug. 19, showed Mr. Romney with a slight edge among registered voters who are Catholic.

“Since 1972, the candidate who has won the Catholic vote has won the popular vote as well,” said Robert P. Jones, chief executive and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington. “The Catholic vote does tend to be on the side of the winning candidate. It’s the quintessential religious swing group.”  [This is the only reason the political parties are paying attention to the Catholics.]

But Mr. Jones said he did not see evidence of major shifts among Catholic voters this time — not among white Catholics, who tend to favor the Republican, and not among Latino Catholics, who tend to favor the Democrat. Neither the bishops’ religious liberty campaign nor the president’s initiative to lift some restrictions for illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children has resulted in much of a change, Mr. Jones said.

Both campaigns are organizing Catholic leadership teams in the states, and they have announced slates of prominent Catholics to serve as national co-chairmen and surrogates. The Romney campaign has enlisted six former American ambassadors to the Holy See as national co-chairmen of Catholics for Romney.
 

The co-chairmen of Catholics for Obama are scholars, prominent laypeople like Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Senator Ted Kennedy, and politicians like Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois. [None of these people should be allowed to call themselves "Catholic" as they stand against the Church in every issue.]

The Obama campaign is counting on the social justice Catholics who are concerned that the Romney-Ryan team would cut the safety net for the needy and the elderly. Polls have also shown that many Catholics support same-sex marriage and do not accept the bishops’ assertions that religious liberty is at risk. [This is why making the war with Obama about "religious liberty" is such a terrible mistake.  Even Catholics don't understand why Obama is wrong because no one is explaining it to them.  Maybe if the bishops would actually teach the beliefs of the Church, more people would understand why Obama's actions are evil and must be opposed.]

Staff members with the Obama campaign who did not want to be quoted said it would be highlighting the fact that the bishops had repeatedly issued letters criticizing the budget proposed by Mr. Ryan over its failure to protect what the Bible calls “the least of these.” [There is a much more vulnerable group that needs the bishops' attention - the unborn, who are being killed by the millions in our country.  In the City of New York, which is a major part of Cardinal Dolan's archdiocese, there are 89,000 babies killed every year.  41% of all pregnancies in this city end in abortion, and over 60% of all pregnancies in the minority communities are aborted.  That is where the bishops' focus should be.]

The invitation to Cardinal Dolan circumvented church protocol, said the cardinal’s spokesman, Joseph Zwilling. Usually, the local bishop gives the prayer at the convention. So when the Romney campaign asked Cardinal Dolan to deliver the benediction, the cardinal first checked with Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., who gave his approval, Mr. Zwilling said.

Cardinal Dolan accepted but said that he would be giving only a prayer, not an endorsement, Mr. Zwilling said. The cardinal also said that he had informed the Democratic Party that he would accept a similar invitation from it. A spokesman for the Obama campaign said that it had not offered one but suggested that it was close to announcing its religious lineup. [The Democratic party has since said they will not be inviting Cardinal Dolan to their convention.  Why Cardinal Dolan would even want to go this convention, which will be a celebration of abortion and same sex marriage, is beyond my understanding.]

* * * 

Raymond Arroyo of EWTN just did an interview with Mitt Romney in which he asked Romney what, as president, he will do about the HHS Mandate.  Father Z has a partial written transcript on his blog:

Raymond Arroyo: The Catholic community in this country and people across the faith spectrum were outraged by President Obama’s HHS Mandate – requiring abortifacients and contraceptives to be made available to employees. It set off protests by the Catholic bishops and individual people of faith. What will you do as president about that HHS Mandate?

Gov. Romney: Well, first of all I’ll continue to meet with to Cardinal [Timothy] Dolan [of New York and President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops] – who by the way is going to offer the benediction on the last evening of the Republican Convention after my acceptance speak. So I am making it very clear that the interest of religious freedom is something I support wholeheartedly and will work with him and with others to assure that each piece of legislation that we consider is thought also in terms of its impact on religious freedom and tolerance. This is a nation where our first freedom is the right to worship God as we choose, and any effort on the part of the federal government to intrude on religious liberty and to reject tolerance in favor of a government mandate is a violation of that first freedom.

Did you notice something missing from Romney's answer?  He talks about the importance of freedom and assures us that he supports religious freedom.  He also promises that he will continue to meet with Cardinal Dolan.  Romney tells us "the interest of religious freedom is something I support wholeheartedly and will work with him [Cardinal Dolan] and with others to assure that each piece of legislation that we consider is thought also in terms of its impact on religious freedom and tolerance."  But he does not say what he will do about the mandate.  Catholics, are you listening?
 

Remember there was a politician in 2008 who made big promises during his campaign.  Barack Obama said the first thing he would do if elected president would be to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.  He actually even signed an executive order that it be closed.  Yet, it is still open, almost four years into his presidency, and in fact, Obama doesn't even mention it anymore.  Politicians lie, folks, and when a politician couches his words as Romney did in answering Raymond Arroyo's question, it would be foolhardy to believe any of what he is saying. 

I watched all of Raymond Arroyo's interview with Mitt Romney, and it was basically one softball question after another.  One of Arroyo's "pressing" questions was why Paul Ryan has stopped wearing ties since he began campaigning with Romney.  Arroyo never once questioned Romney on his changing positions regarding abortion, on the fact that he supports abortion in cases of rape, that he supports homosexuals as leaders of the Boy Scouts, that he supports same sex civil unions, that he supports the adoption of children by homosexuals, the fact that RomneyCare was the basis of ObamaCare and that Romney covered abortions in his healthcare plan, or any of a myriad of other issues that are of importance to any thinking Catholic. 

I can only repeat one more time:  we have no choice in this election.  Barack Obama and Mitt Romney look different from each other and may even sound different, but they are one and the same person.  Nothing will change under Mitt Romney.  I would love to be wrong, but I have no choice but to face reality and admit the sad reality that American voters, and particularly Catholics, are screwed in this election.

From thetruthisnow.com:

The following are 40 ways that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are essentially the same candidate….

1. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both supported TARP.

2. Mitt Romney supported Barack Obama’s “economic stimulus” packages.

3. Mitt Romney says that Barack Obama’s bailout of the auto industry was actually his idea.

4. Neither candidate supports immediately balancing the federal budget.

5. They both believe in big government and they both have a track record of being big spenders while in office.

6. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both fully support the Federal Reserve.

7. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both on record as saying that the president should not question the “independence” of the Federal Reserve.

8. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both said that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did a good job during the last financial crisis.

9. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both felt that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke deserved to be renominated to a second term.

10. Both candidates oppose a full audit of the Federal Reserve.

11. Both candidates are on record as saying that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has done a good job.

12. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both been big promoters of universal health care.

13. Mitt Romney was the one who developed the plan that Obamacare was later based upon.

14. Wall Street absolutely showers both candidates with campaign contributions.

15. Neither candidate wants to eliminate the income tax or the IRS.

16. Both candidates want to keep personal income tax rates at the exact same levels for the vast majority of Americans.

17. Both candidates are “open” to the idea of imposing a Value Added Tax on the American people.

18. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both believe that the TSA is doing a great job.

19. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both supported the NDAA.

20. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both supported the renewal of the Patriot Act.

21. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both believe that the federal government should be able to indefinitely detain American citizens that are considered to be terrorists.

22. Both candidates believe that American citizens suspected of being terrorists can be killed by the president without a trial.

23. Barack Obama has not closed Guantanamo Bay like he promised to do, and Mitt Romney actually wants to double the number of prisoners held there.

24. Both candidates support the practice of “extraordinary rendition”.

25. They both support the job-killing “free trade” agenda of the global elite.

26. They both accuse each other of shipping jobs out of the country and both of them are right.

27. Both candidates are extremely soft on illegal immigration.

28. Neither candidate has any military experience. This is the first time that this has happened in a U.S. election since 1944.

29. Both candidates earned a degree from Harvard University.

30. They both believe in the theory of man-made global warming.

31. Mitt Romney has said that he will support a “cap and trade” carbon tax scheme (like the one Barack Obama wants) as long as the entire globe goes along with it.

32. Both candidates have a very long record of supporting strict gun control measures.

33. Both candidates have been pro-abortion most of their careers. Mitt Romney’s “conversion” to the pro-life cause has been questioned by many. In fact, Mitt Romney has made millions on Bain Capital’s investment in a company called “Stericycle” that incinerates aborted babies collected from family planning clinics.

34. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both believe that the Boy Scout ban on openly gay troop leaders is wrong.

35. They both believe that a “two state solution” will bring lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

36. Both candidates have a history of nominating extremely liberal judges.

37. Like Barack Obama, Mitt Romney also plans to add “signing statements” to bills when he signs them into law.

38. They both have a horrible record when it comes to job creation.

39. Both candidates believe that the president has the power to take the country to war without getting the approval of the U.S. Congress.

40. Both candidates plan to continue running up more government debt even though the U.S. government is already 16 trillion dollars in debt.