After talking with Obama in the White House
And following his decisions and proclamations since coming into office…..
Cardinal Francis George, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Archbishop of Chicago, has reasoned that President Obama is on the wrong side of history.
“I think he has his political debts to pay, and so he’s paying them.”
Cardinal George said his conversation with the president was polite but substantive.
“It’s hard to disagree with him because he’ll always tell you he agrees with you,” he said. “Maybe that’s political. I think he sincerely wants to agree with you. You have to say, again and again, ‘No, Mr. President, we don’t agree (on abortion).’ But we can agree on a lot, and we do, and that’s why there is so much hope. I think we have to pray for him every day.”
Cardinal George said he told the president he was concerned about his decision to rescind the Mexico City policy, which resulted in providing taxpayer money to fund abortion overseas.
“He said we weren’t exporting abortion,” the cardinal said. “I said, ‘Yes we are.’ He would say, ‘I know I have to do certain things here. … But be patient and you’ll see the pattern will change.’ I said, ‘Mr. President, you’ve given us nothing but the wrong signals on this issue.’ So, we’ll see, but I’m not as hopeful now as I was when he was first elected.”
Few faithful pro-life supporters are. I’ve been hearing this as recently as through this weekend. Because even those willing to give the president a chance to learn that governing has far more consequence and gravity than campaigning, are seeing quick signs of the power the abortion lobby has over his administration. And it’s dividing society in half, he says, just like slavery did. Pro-life advocates are with Abraham Lincoln on this one, and President Obama is with Stephen Douglas, whether he realizes it or not.
Cardinal George admits Obama doesn’t like to hear that. Though not all communication can be sanitized.
If even the incremental restrictions on abortion — such as the ban on partial-birth abortion or parental notification laws — are rolled back, Cardinal George said pro-life advocates could feel desperate because they fear “abortion will be a human right, and of course, if it’s a human right, it can’t be qualified.”
Cardinal George said Pope John Paul II, with the help of Muslim and Latin American countries, successfully fought the Clinton administration’s efforts to declare abortion a fundamental “human right” at the 1994 U.N. population conference in Cairo, Egypt.
“Whether or not the present pope will be able to do this a generation later, I don’t know, because we’re going to be faced with it again,” the cardinal said. “But you can’t go on indefinitely. For 80 years we were a slave republic, and it took a terrible war to end that. And now for 40 years we’re in an abortion regime, and I’m not sure how that’s going to end.”
Cardinal George is a great philosopher. I wonder how he would define “end”.
0 Comment
Thank you, Cardinal George, for your faithful devotion to human dignity. It’s honesty and courage such as his that give great hope that perhaps justice for all human life will be met, but only when we tell the truth, as he has always done with the President. Things are bleak, but the Cardinal’s honesty toward the President are a breath of fresh air in the politics and political correctness that fill our days.
Sheila, you are a blessing. Thanks for succinctly bringing all of this important information that I would not have time to ferret out to my computer monitor. (day after day – except when you can’t find a computer on your foreign travels! We’re going to have to do something so we can have access to your great insights every day with no interruption.)
I don’t know how any pro-lifer could have had any hope for an Obama administration. As Christians, we must be hopeful, but that hope must not blind us to the reality that others will choose death over life every time. That Christians actually voted for Obama knowing his steadfast promotion of abortion is embarrassing.
The analogy to Lincoln and Douglas is astute, especially considering Obama is desperately (and wrongly) trying to associate himself with Lincoln. I just pray that we do not require war to win this fight against the forces of death.
It is very difficult to be hopeful these days.