Notre Dame's Frs. Hesburgh, Jenkins, and Scully urge Democrats not to kill school choice

Prof. Rick Garnett reports at Mirror of Justice:

Dear Senator Durbin and Secretary Duncan,

... We write today because we are all deeply disappointed by the turn of events that has led to the imminent demise of the Washington DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), and we are gravely concerned about the effects that the unprecedented gestures that have jeopardized this program will have on some of the most at-risk children in our nation’s capital.

[...]

Three decades of research tell us that Catholic schools are often the best providers of educational opportunity to poor and minority children. Students who attend Catholic schools are 42 percent more likely to graduate from high school and are two and a half times more likely to graduate from college than their peers in public schools. Recent scholarship on high school graduation rates in Milwaukee confirms that programs like the OSP can, over time, create remarkable opportunities for at-risk children. And after only three years, the research commissioned by the Department of Education is clear and strong with regard to the success of the OSP, as you both well know. This program empowers parents to become more involved in their children’s education. Parents of OSP students argue that their children are doing better in school, and they report that these scholarships have given their families an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty. If this program ends, these parents will be forced to send their children back to a school system that is ranked among the worst in the nation, into schools they fought desperately to leave just a few years ago.

At Notre Dame, we have recently witnessed the painful but logical outcomes of your failure to save the OSP. For the past three years, the University of Notre Dame has worked in close partnership with Holy Redeemer School, a preK-8 Catholic school community located just a few blocks from Senator Durbin’s office on the Hill. In fact, Senator Durbin visited the school and expressed his deeply favorable impression. We too have witnessed the transformative capacity of Holy Redeemer, a place where parents report feeling a sincere sense of ownership in their children’s education for the first time in their lives. Indeed, over the past three years strong leadership, excellent academics, low teacher turnover, and committed parents have all contributed to truly outstanding gains in student achievement. The children at Holy Redeemer were, unlike so many of their peers, on the path to college.

So we were deeply saddened to learn that the impending termination of the OSP has put the school in an untenable situation, leading the pastor to conclude that the school must be closed. Families are presently being notified that their children will have to find a new school next year. The end of the OSP represents more than the demise of a relatively small federal program; it spells the end of more than a half-century of quality Catholic education for some of the most at-risk African American children in the District. That this program is being allowed to end is both unnecessary and unjust...

[Read the whole thing]

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
"A Deep Resonance With Catholic Social Teaching"?

Yet Another "Non-Negotiable" Item ...

Obama Continues to Act Like a Typical Left-Liberal Democrat Politician Re: Education

The Illustrated Progressive Catholic Alphabet

Larry D has a laugh-out-loud-funny idea for a book at Acts of the Apostasy. Head on over to read the first installment of The Illustrated Progressive Catholic Alphabet.

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report)

Malthusian Nonsense Alert: 5-Year Ban on Having Children [UPDATED]

Soon to be a meme heard round the world:

... Here’s the truth: we are running out of resources and we are running out of time. The International Committee on Climate Change has said we have thee to five years to curb our ways or the current environmental disaster is irreversible. Irreversible means that the little economic hiccup we’re feeling today isn’t even the warn up round. It’s T-ball compared to the major leagues.

You think the economy is bad now—wait a few years. Wait until we’re almost completely out of oil and food and water and available land and really I could go on for two more pages listing everything we’re running out of. Why? Because we are quite literally running out of everything.

So how long do you have to wait to be starving, thirsty, and all the rest?

Truthfully, it shouldn’t be long now.

And the main reason it shouldn’t be long now is because there are already way too many of us. By now, everyone knows the current population stats. The earth is close to holding 7 billion people. If things don’t stop soon, by 2050, conservative estimates put the number at 9.2 billion.

I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again. Scientists studying the carrying capacity of the earth—that is how many of us can live here sustainably—have fluctuated massively. Wild-eyed optimists believe it’s close to 2 billion. Dour pessimists say 300 million. The point is that—and I’m going by the best of those figures—we need to lose 4.4 billion people and we need to lose them fast.

Not too long ago, one of my readers pointed out that I’m pretty good at pointing out what’s wrong in the world and lousy about pointing out solutions. So here’s my simple solution: Stop Having Children.

I call it the 5 Year Ban. For the next five years let’s not have any kids. All of us. The whole freaking planet.

I don’t think this should be a top down approach. I don’t mean a literal government ban. I mean a grassroots movement of responsible adults behaving like responsible adults. I mean a populist moratorium on childbirth.

Why 5 years? Because it’s a manageable number. Because it would mean a billion less people. Because a billion less people is a good place to start.

If everyone living on the planet today were really serious about, well, there being a planet left to live on, a planet left for our children to actually occupy, a planet that can actually sustain life. If we were serious then we would all be using birth control.

All the time. And we would never stop using it...

My Comments:
"... responsible adults behaving like responsible adults."

I don't think those words mean what he thinks they mean.


UPDATE
The incomparable Dale Price writes to the author of the above drivel to offer this modest proposal. (Hat tip: Cranky Conservative)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
UK Government Official Says Having More Than 2 Children "Irresponsible"; Catholics Respond

Rich Leonardi on the "Obnoxiousness" of the Concept of "Carbon Footprints"

"Conservative Catholic Grandmother"™ Pelosi Says Birth Control a Boon for the Economy [UPDATED]

Malthusian Nonsense Alert: "Save the Planet — Have Fewer Kids"

Deacon Fournier Reviews Population Controllers

Malthusian Nonsense Alert: Babies a Drag on the Economy, Report Says

Darwin Catholic: "Want Sustainable? Try a Family"

Malthusian Nonsense in the Extreme: "When Should You Die?"

Population Control Movement is "Number One Violator of Human Rights," Author Claims

USAToday Columnist: Religion is Killing the Planet

The Pitter-Patter of Carbon Footprints ...

Cardinal Pell Criticizes Australian Medical Ass'n for Publishing Letter Advocating Carbon Tax on Children

Professor Solves Global Warming: Let’s Tax Reproduction

Global Alarming Update: Focus on So-Called "Carbon Footprint" Anti-Family

Malthusian Nonsense from "Global Warming" Alarmists

Cardinal Pell on Global Warming Alarmists: "Scaremongers" and "Zealots"

Video Captures Child-Rape Cover-Up at Planned Parenthood

My friend Victor Morton has written a front-page story in The Washington Times on the latest news regarding another statutory rape cover-up at Planned Parenthood.

Interesting new ground broken by Victor and one of his co-contributors, Ben Conery, is this laughable tidbit:

A city spokesman said Thursday that the Bloomington City Police is not investigating the clinic or the nurse for possibly violating the statutory-rape notification law, but is beefing up security around the facility to protect it from a possible backlash.

'There's no investigation taking place, but they have stepped up patrols around the area,' said Danny Lopez, communications director for the City of Bloomington. Patrols have been stepped up in case anybody has a strong reaction to the situation, but he said there have been no problems.

(emphasis added)

Do read the whole thing.

Faith & Family: "The Car Seat Culture"

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report)



Faith & Family discusses a topic that has been the subject of not a few arguments between Sarah and me: how "the car seat culture" punishes large families.

(Sarah thinks the overly-protective car seat and booster seat laws are "worth it"; I think they go too far - we could easily fit another couple of kids in our mini-van if the 4-year-old and 6-year-old weren't in booster seats.)

Insipid: Sen. Biden Questions the Depth of Gov. Palin's Commitment to Special Needs Children, Pointing to Her Lack of Support for ESCR

I have a post up at Catholics Against Joe Biden regarding Sen. Biden's disgusting remarks in favor of the objectively evil embryonic stem cell research, in which he calls into question Gov. Palin's commitment to the concerns of families with special needs.

McCain Won't Change on His Steadfast Support for ESCR, Yet Flips on Gay Adoption After Outcry Over Comments

(Hat tip: Custos Fidei)

Matthew Archbold has the details at Creative Minority Report. Matthew nails what's going on with this money quote:

This is not a gay rights issue. This must be about what's best for children. But here's the sad sad truth to all of this, folks. Children don't vote. Gay people do. That means for politicians, the gays will win every time. Every single time.

Obama Continues to Act Like a Typical Left-Liberal Democrat Politician Re: Education

So, where's all this "change" we've been hearing about? Certainly not on the subject of educating our children:

CHICAGO — A landmark education program that provides opportunity to hundreds of families in the nation’s capital to attend private schools is under attack from Democrats in Congress.

Barack Obama told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in February that he was open to voucher programs, but just last week announced his intentions to squash the DC pilot program.

“Barack Obama prefers private education for his daughters but won’t give DC parents the same opportunity. Obama and Congressional Democrats want to slam the door on a progressive education program for low-income children. The teachers union is one lobby Barack Obama refuses to challenge,” said Brian Burch, President of Fidelis.

Despite pleas from parents, Democrats intend to eliminate all funding for the Opportunity Scholarships that have helped so many families in the nation’s capital.

“Vouchers are Change. Rather than subjecting kids to rotting schools, vouchers have brought change to hundreds of families, who opted for private or parochial schools. If Barack Obama had fought for this program, it would be saved. But he refuses to help these low-income families. By supporting the teachers union, he sadly has become the Status Quo Candidate on education,” said Brian Burch, President of Fidelis.

Back in February, it looked like Barack Obama would be willing to buck the teachers union and offer real change in education.

***
But by June, the teachers lobby got to him. He told ABC News last week: “We don’t have enough slots for every child to go into a parochial school or a private school. And what you would see is a huge drain of resources out of the public schools.”

[More]

Biblical Scholars Challenge Pelosi's "Scripture" Quote

From Cybercast News Service:

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars.

In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature."

Cybercast News Service repeatedly queried the speaker's office for two days to determine where the alleged Bible quote is found. Thus far, no one has responded.

Distinguished biblical scholars, however, cast doubt on the existence of the passage.

[More]

My Comments:
Some thoughts as I read this:

1. Stuff like this only lends credence to the protestant meme that Catholics "don't know the Bible".


2. Lord, spare me from having to listen to every piece of tripe coming from a left-liberal politican justified by the mantra "for the children".


3. How did Pelosi and her staff think they were going to be able to get away with this completely fabricated Bible "quote"?

The answer to the last question may be because she's gotten away with using it so many times before:

Interestingly, Pelosi has mentioned the quote before, Mariottini noted.

"In truth, (she) has used this 'passage' in many different ways, and all of those usages have nothing to do with the Bible whatsoever," he said.

Indeed, Cybercast News Service has learned that Pelosi has repeatedly used the quote:

-- In December 2005, in a Christmas message to the U.S. House of Representatives, Pelosi said: "Mr. Speaker, as we leave for this Christmas recess, let us say, 'God bless you' to the American people by voting against this Republican budget and statement of injustice and immorality, and let us not let the special interest goose get fat at the expense of America's children.

"The gentleman from Washington [state], Mr. McDermott, quoted the prophet Isaiah. And as the Bible teaches us, to minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship, to ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us. Let us vote no on this budget as an act of worship and for America's children."

-- On Feb. 8, 2007, in remarks before the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee, when it held hearings on global warming, she used the same quote, verbatim, as in her Earth Day release.

-- On April 6, 2007, in congressional remarks before the Easter recess: "In this Holy Week, we are reminded of these words in the Old Testament: 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' We must move quickly to honor God's creation by reducing greenhouse gas pollution in the United States and around the world."

-- On April 25, 2007, in a speech to the League of Conservation Voters in Washington, D.C.: "We are now charging ahead to tackle one of humanity's greatest challenges yet - global warming. We will do this because we hold our children's future in our hands - not our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, but our own children. "As it says in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.'"

-- On Oct. 22, 2007, in a television interview with PBS host Tavis Smiley, she used it in discussion of her roots, attributing the quote to the book of Isaiah: "I'm raised in a family in Baltimore, Maryland, my father was the mayor. He was in Congress when I was born. And we were devoutly Catholic, very patriotic. We love America. Devoutly Catholic, deeply patriotic, proud of our Italian American heritage, and in our case, staunchly Democratic.

"And that faith was related to our Democratic values. That is to say, the gospel of Matthew: 'When I was hungry, you gave me to eat.' You know, the least of our brethren. So that's an inspiration in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, Isaiah says, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the god who made us.'"

[More]

So, when left-liberals want to use scripture to justify their policy preferences, they just completely pull something out of their arses such as this alleged "passage" from "Isaiah" or that part of the "Sermon on the Mount" where Jesus blessed same-sex "marriage".

But they'd never be caught dead relying on some actual but "obscure passage" in a letter from St. Paul to those members of the Church in the capital of the Roman Empire.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Obama in Ohio: Sermon on Mount Justifies Same-Sex Unions

The Liberal Bible

"... And The Truth Shall Make You Free."

DarwinCatholic on "Bragging Rights"

Darwin writes:

Goodness knows, there are lots of ways that liberals and conservatives manage to annoy each other. Still, one that has struck me recently is an odd sort of bragging rights.

One of the main divisions between these groups at this point in time is over how the less vulnerable in society are best provided with care. The liberal view is generally that comprehensive government programs should be set up to assure that everyone in society has a certain basic level of food, income, medical care, housing, babysitting, rice pudding, etc. The conservative view is generally that guaranteed government handouts create dependency and hurt people in the long run, and that short term help for those in trouble is generally better provided by family, church or private charity.

***
In other words, the liberal gets to sound like he is personally doing something about the issue by supporting legislation which will in turn tax everyone and help large numbers of people. The conservative says he supports more local/charitable efforts, but while it's considered polite to talk up the legislation you support, it's not considered polite to brag about recent charitable donations you have made...

***
So the conservative thinks that the liberal is a hopeless bragger who doesn't do anything to help the poor himself but is happy to tax others; the liberal thinks the conservative is a heartless skinflint who doesn't lift a finger to help those without ...

[Read the whole thing]

My Comments:
"So the conservative thinks that the liberal is a hopeless bragger who doesn't do anything to help the poor himself but is happy to tax others ..."

Which also has the virtue of quite often being true. The smug bastards.

;-)

Sorry, but after viewing the Pete Stark video (hat tip: Publius), I'm in no mood for being charitable toward and undertstanding of the liberal mindset.

More from Ryan Anderson on SCHIP

Notre Dame law professor Rick Garnett has another post at Mirror of Justice quoting Ryan Anderson regarding SCHIP expansion:

Thanks to Prof. Garnett for posting my Weekly Standard article and this quick note, and [thanks also] to Prof. Berg for his thoughtful response to my article.

Prof. Berg’s comments perfectly illustrate the point I was trying to make; namely that, as I wrote, “there are legitimate arguments on both sides of the debate over this bill.” I outlined some considerations against the bill—and why I thought a faithful Catholic could legitimately oppose it—in my article. Prof. Berg offered some arguments for the bill in his post. I don’t find his case convincing, but we’re not going to settle the American health-care debate here and now. (For a careful reflection on solutions to our health care problems to which I’m generally sympathetic see Eric Cohen and Yuval Levin’s Commentary essay “Health Care in Three Acts.”)

But the point of my article wasn’t the merits of the S-chip debate; I was primarily addressing the parameters of legitimate “Catholic” positions. In particular, I focused on whether a group that purports to “take seriously all our Church’s social and political teachings, and refuses to water down our faith in service of partisan politics” should claim that its favored policy conclusion is the only acceptable one and then run attack ads questioning the pro-life commitments of those who disagree. It seems to me that the Church’s teaching on the legitimate autonomy and liberty of Catholics in the political sphere—within certain moral parameters—is flouted here. I take it that Prof. Berg agrees with me on this point.

Prof. Berg challenged some of my characterizations of the bill. Points similar to mine were made in the New York Times by David Brooks, in the Washington Post by George Will, and in the Weekly Standard by Fred Barnes. Perhaps they have gotten it wrong, and Prof. Berg got it right. Clearly, there is debate—in my opinion, reasonable debate—on this question . Which is, of course, all the more reason for a non-partisan Catholic group not to run the radio ads.

***
What I found most curious, though, was Prof. Berg’s calling into question the intentions of those who oppose the proposed legislation to extend and expand S-chip: “I'm not so confident as Mr. Anderson that everyone in the debate is focused on helping the poor.” It is clear in context that he was questioning President Bush’s intentions. This doesn’t quite square with those who know Bush personally and have spent time working with him. Even pro-life, pro-poor Democrat John DiIulio, who has had a rather rocky relationship with the White House, has repeatedly stressed (most recently in his just-released book Godly Republic) that President Bush has very real and serious commitments to the poor. I don’t know if Prof. Berg also questions my intentions, or those of Brooks, Will, and Barnes, or, for that matter, Senator Sam Brownback, who voted against the S-chip expansion and is well known for his big heart for the poor.

It is tiresome—not to mention unhelpful—to insinuate that liberals care for the poor while conservatives do not. This charge also has the vice of being untrue (as Arthur Brooks persuasively argued in his book Who Really Cares?). Rather than assume ill will on the part of those with whom we disagree, we ought to consider that there simply are different ways of being pro-poor. Many conservatives believe and argue that their preferred policy solutions best help the poor. For a taste of this, see Yuval Levin and Peter Wehner’s recent NY Sun op/ed. At the end of the day, we have to realize that there are many competing and conflicting considerations about how to turn our moral and religious convictions into public policy.

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis added)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
More on Being Pro-Life and Anti-SCHIP Expansion

A "Truce" on Abortion?

National Catholic Register: "Vetoing Children’s Health Care?"

"S-Chipping Away Pro-Life Protections?"

More on Being Pro-Life and Anti-SCHIP Expansion

Notre Dame law professor Rick Garnett has a good post at Mirror of Justice titled "Pro-Life, but against S-Chip expansion?", which details the efforts of some outfit calling itself "Catholics United" to call into question the "pro-life" credentials of 10 members of Congress who voted against the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Rick quotes Ryan Anderson's response at The Weekly Standard titled "A Hijacking in Progress", which asks "How did S-Chip become a pro-life issue?":

... IF YOU DON'T support using federal funds to help middle-class families get health insurance, then you can't call yourself pro-life. Or so says Catholics United, a "non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the message of justice and the common good found at the heart of the Catholic Social Tradition."

***
What this group has really done is to take its favored policy and baptize it in the name of the church. We can expect to see a lot more of this kind of thing in 2008, as Democrats search for religious voters and progressive religious organizations do the leg work. These groups claim to rise above the fray of partisanship, dedicating themselves to elevating the national conversation from the mud-slinging of the "religious right." But if you disagree with them about the prudence of this particular bill you're not really pro-life. Everything is now a moral issue. And there is no room for disagreement.

The pro-life jabs are particularly distasteful and destructive. They are nothing more than gross moral equivocation and the intentional hijacking of language. If every poverty-fighting bill under the sun becomes a "pro-life" bill, then the words lose all meaning. According to its website, Catholics United is a pro-life group dedicated to protecting the 1.3 million Americans killed every year by abortion. Yet it is leading the charge to eviscerate the clear meaning that the words "pro-life" have had in the American context for the past generation: opposition to legalized abortion coupled with support for mothers facing crisis pregnancies...

(emphasis added)

Rick, who is also a contributor at Vox Nova, should post this over there, although I'm guessing the reaction of Tony A / Morning's Minion would be fairly predictable. He is already on record that coming out against the expansion of SCHIP means that one is insufficiently "pro-life", lacking in "family values", and unworthy of being called "compassionate". And, after all, Tony has assured us that, while "banning abortion often does not really impact on its incidence", the expansion of SCHIP "will do more to lower the abortion rate in the US".

This, despite the fact that a watering down or outright removal of existing pro-life provisions, as well as an end-run around the federal law banning the use of tax dollars for abortion services, has led the National Catholic Register to describe the Democrat Congress' SCHIP expansion as a pro-choice "Trojan horse".


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
A "Truce" on Abortion?

National Catholic Register: "Vetoing Children’s Health Care?"

"S-Chipping Away Pro-Life Protections?"

National Catholic Register: "The Clintons' God"

(Hat tip: Dave Hartline at Catholic Report)

Paul Kengor writes in the October 14-20, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Register:

As Pope John Paul II wrote in Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth) the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, and through the magisterium, serves as the “pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15), particularly through its teaching of truth regarding moral action.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the tragedy of abortion, especially in contrast to where some (but certainly not all) Protestants stand on the issue, including two extremely influential Protestants: Bill and Hillary Clinton.

No president did as much to advance legalized abortion as Bill Clinton, who is now poised to be exceeded in that capacity only by his spouse, who has an exceedingly good chance of becoming our next president, and no doubt will be the Democratic Party’s nominee for 2008.

Their positions on abortion are well-known, though the manner in which they have been guided into those positions by their churches is not. That spiritual misdirection is shocking and appalling, and illustrates the dangers of an ever-proliferating number of Christian ministers and denominations that veer in all sorts of directions as they struggle to ascertain moral truth, all without the guide of the magisterium that eternally benefits Catholics.

First, consider the case of Bill Clinton.

When Clinton was first elected governor of Arkansas in the late 1970s, he joined a conservative Baptist congregation in Little Rock called First Immanuel Baptist Church, where he came under the profound influence of a minister named W.O. Vaught. The two frequently conversed not only about the preacher’s sermons but about how Clinton’s faith should be incorporated into his public life.

How the two dealt with the abortion issue is particularly interesting. The young governor was reportedly troubled, personally ambivalent. Though he sided with the “pro-choice” argument intellectually, and felt the pressure of his wife’s religious-like dedication to Roe v. Wade, something inside of Bill Clinton — his conscience, presumably — was prompting questions, perhaps even second thoughts.

The governor was struggling over the definition of human life. Could his preacher go to his Bible and help out?

***
Of course, at the time of Vaught’s counsel, the Catholic Church was already strongly committed to the pro-life position. It had come to that position not through invocation of a Bible passage proscribing “abortion” but through the means that the Roman Catholic Church has used for centuries to ascertain moral truth.

As a Catholic, I sympathize with Vaught. He may have felt in his heart that abortion was wrong, but it was up to him alone — with the option of consulting other “Bible Christians” — to study his Bible in order to assemble the collection of Scriptural references to eventually point him to the same conclusion as the Church in Rome.

The structure of the Catholic Church is such that determining truth is not a process left to each and every pastor at each and every congregation based on personal discernment of the Hebrew or Greek, or through some form of “private revelation.” But he alone was the magisterium — one man serving as the pope, the cardinals, the bishops — to his 4,000-member flock, an impossible, daunting task, a terrible burden.

His flock awaited his conclusions for instruction. So did the Democratic governor and future leader of the free world.

And what about Hillary Clinton?

Bill Clinton ended up firmly in the camp of his wife on the abortion issue. One day, pro-lifers would dub him, “the abortion president.”

His wife scores a 100% rating from NARAL and a 0% rating from the National Right to Life Committee. While, like Bill, she is willing to compromise on numerous political issues, she will not budge on abortion. It is neither uncharitable nor inaccurate — nor name calling — to say that on the subject of abortion Hillary Clinton is fanatical.

There is no issue that impassions her more. She has not changed her position on any meaningful life issue, from federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to banning partial-birth abortions to supporting funding for ultrasound machines to backing legislation to protect babies injured in the womb by outside parties.

But here is maybe the saddest part of her intransigence: As a lifelong committed Methodist, Hillary sees no contradiction in supporting abortion. Quite the contrary, she points to her church’s leadership as a source of guidance.

After all, her denomination, the United Methodist Church, is pro-abortion — a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, along with a bunch of other Protestant denominations.

***
Her church is not only pro-abortion but has opened its pulpit to no less than the author of Roe v. Wade. Indeed, one day in 1995, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, a fellow Methodist, was invited to address Hillary’s congregation, the historic Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington. He was invited by her pro-abortion pastor — J. Philip Wogaman, president of the American Theological Society, professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Society, and one of the top Methodist theologians in the country.

Hillary’s consistency with her denomination on legalized abortion was emphasized to me by her close friend and former obstetrician-gynecologist, William Harrison, the nationally known Fayetteville, Ark., abortion doctor, who was interviewed at length for my book.

Harrison, also a Methodist, talked of how abortion providers are counting on a President Hillary Clinton. Asked if he would expect Hillary to change George Bush’s pro-life policies, Harrison exclaimed: “Oh, absolutely. … I hope to God she does.”

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis added)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Hilliary! - Key Decision-Maker on Abortion During Clinton Admin with "a Nearly Religious Devotion" to Abortion Rights

National Catholic Register: "Vetoing Children’s Health Care?"

The editors of National Catholic Register, writing in the September 30, 2007 issue, take on the Democrat Congress' recent mutation of the SCHIP program:

When a Republican president vetoes a children’s health-care program, the story that plays out in many people’s minds seems straightforward and obvious. It’s a terrible shame. Such a veto is a sign that priorities are askew in Washington.

But in the case of the president’s planned veto of the S-CHIP (the State Children’s Health Insurance Program) the “obvious” storyline is 100% wrong. In fact, this is one of those strange cases where folks at the U.S. Bishops’ Conference might actually applaud a president’s veto of a children’s health-insurance bill.

Both the U.S. bishops and President Bush once supported the S-CHIP — but now have raised significant questions about it. That’s because a new Congress has transformed this welfare reform into a Trojan horse.

***
The old version of the S-CHIP used language that appeared in the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and the Fetal Pain Act. Together, these pieces of legislation made a compelling case, in federal law, that unborn children had rights, too. The new version of the S-CHIP reverses that gain.

The old version of the S-CHIP honored our nation’s longstanding federal policies against taxpayer-funded abortions. The new version of the S-CHIP makes an end-run around those policies.

The old version of the S-CHIP ensured that as much of our welfare expenditures as possible actually helped serve poor children. The new version ensures that as much of our taxpayer money as currently possible goes to fund abortions.

The old version of the S-CHIP had broad-based bipartisan support and the support of the U.S. bishops. The new version has the support of Planned Parenthood — and raised the ire of the bishops’ pro-life expert, Richard Doerflinger.

The old version of the S-CHIP was a very good thing. The veto of the new version of the S-CHIP is a very good thing — and it shows how crucially important it is that we have a pro-life president.

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis added)


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
"S-Chipping Away Pro-Life Protections?"

Democrat Congress Proposes Massive 20,000% Increase on Cigar Tax ("for the Children")