At USCCB Meeting, Cardinal George Issues Blunt Challenge to Obama on Abortion

From John Allen:

Cardinal Francis George, speaking this morning as president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, said all Americans should “rejoice” that a country which once tolerated slavery has elected an African-American as president – and, in the same breath, he issued a blunt challenge to the new administration on abortion.

“If the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, that African Americans were other people’s property and somehow less than persons, were still settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would not be President of the United States,” George said.

"Today, as was the case a hundred and fifty years ago, common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good," he said.

“The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice,” George said, drawing sustained applause from the bishops.

George said that while efforts to end racism and to promote economic justice are “pillars” of Catholic teaching, so too is opposition to abortion. His address drew a standing ovation from the bishops.

George’s comments, and the reaction from the floor, offered the first indication that the election of a pro-choice Democrat to the White House is unlikely to induce the bishops to soften their emphasis on abortion and other “life issues.”

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“We are perhaps at a moment when, with the grace of God, all races are safely within the American consensus,” George said. “We are not at the point, however, when Catholics, especially in public life, can be considered full partners in the American experience unless they are willing to put aside some fundamental Catholic teachings on a just moral and political order.”

[Read the entire outstanding thing]

My Comments:
Obama Catholics, Cardinal George - as head of the USCCB - has laid out the game plan for you to follow in challenging the man you helped elect on the issue of life.

Roe v. Wade is every bit as detestible as Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson. If those former pillars of "settled law" can fall by the wayside, then so, too, can Roe v. Wade. Make no mistake, the effort to ensure the right to life of the unborn is THE civil rights struggle of our time.