I See Pharisees!

Anyone ever notice that those who are really acting like Pharisees are the one constantly throwing out that epithet?  I cannot be the only one.  Seriously, it’s like the Catholic version of Nazi.  I am here and now declaring that “One Mad Mom’s Law” applies when liberal Catholics with no valid arguments want to score points with people who don’t really know much about Catholicism, they will inevitably start parroting “Pharisees!”  (Godwin has his law, now I have mine.) And, when I say “those really acting like Pharisees,” I mean the “good old liberals’ club.” 

Seriously though, have you ever noticed the name calling among the clergy always comes from one side?  You’ve got James Martin, SJ, with “haters” (I’ll let that go when he gets a clue!), Cardinal Maradiaga (and many more) still going with the old-school “Pharisees”, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone like Fr. Rosica throws out “Alt-Right Catholics.” 

So here’s the name calling of the week:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/papal-advisor-rips-dubia-cardinals-they-have-not-read-amoris-laetitia

 

Advisor close to Pope Francis accuses dubia cardinals of ‘a new pharisaism’

 April 24, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The leader of the Pope’s Council of Nine cardinals said the dubia cardinals haven’t read Amoris Laetitia and wondered why they haven’t “said anything about those who manufacture weapons.”

Personally, Cardinal Maradiaga is starting to sound like someone just woke him up suddenly from a nap and something very random just pops out of his mouth that has nothing to do with anything.  Because, really, what in the world does a have to do with b?  Nothing.

Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga made these remarks during a radio interview on March 25. Andrew Guernsey translated them at OnePeterFive.

“I think, in the first place, that they [the four cardinals] have not read Amoris Laetitia, because, unfortunately, this is the case!” said Maradiaga. “I know the four and I say that they are already in retirement…They should do something else.”

Really, Cardinal?  They didn’t read Amoris Laetitia?  Don’t you think that is a wee bit of a stretch? We seem to have wandered into “Let’s just throw it at the wall and see if it sticks!” mode.  Also, our American dude is retired?  You are 74 and he is 68.  I believe someone has far more voting years left than someone else.  Numbers.  They’re such a hard thing.  I half expect him to say “Somebody get those dern kids off me lawn!”

He criticized the cardinals who asked Pope Francis to clarify whether Amoris Laetitia is aligned with Catholic morality as Pharisees, the hypocrites in the Bible.

Remember, One Mad Mom Law.  Here you go. 

“How come they have not said anything about those who manufacture weapons?” asked Maradiaga. “Some are in countries that manufacture and sell weapons for all the genocide that is happening in Syria, for example. Why? I would not want to put it – shall we say – too strongly; only God knows people’s consciences and inner motivations; but, from the outside it seems to me to be a new pharisaism.”

So, the Fab Four are for the chemical attacks in Syria now?!  Did they also push the button that launched them?  Please.  The shark has officially been jumped.

“The car of the Church has no gear to go in reverse,” continued Maradiaga. “It pulls itself forward because the Holy Spirit is not accustomed to go backwards.”

Except when it makes awkward translations…or prints Catechisms…or…  The Church isn’t going “backwards.”  It corrects course. It clarifies.  Are you really saying the Church has never answers dubias?  Could have fooled me.

He said he’s not worried about the direction of the Church because “it is not Francis, it is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church.”

So, no popes throughout history have ever done anything wrong?  They have all been kept free from error in all regards?  Yeah, not quite historically accurate.

In August, documents released by Wikileaks showed George Soros’ Open Society Foundation planned to work through Maradiaga to influence American Catholic bishops during the Pope’s visit to the U.S.

“We will support PICO’s organizing activities to engage the Pope on economic and racial justice issues, including using the influence of Cardinal Rodriguez, the Pope’s senior advisor,” a report from the Open Society Foundation said. PICO is a leftist community organizing group. Using Maradiaga’s influence included “sending a delegation to visit the Vatican in the spring or summer to allow him to hear directly from low-income Catholics in America.”

(If you want more details on PICO, Stephanie Block has done a great job running down all of the problems.  Here’s just a tidbit: http://johntwo24-25.net/IAF%20and%20Abortion%20-%20Three%20Articles%20by%20Stephanie%20Block.pdf

In 2015, Maradiaga participated in the “shadow synod” that attacked Church teaching and contributed to the subversion of the two synods on the family. 

Not entirely sure how shadowy it was.  Cardinal Madariaga apparently doesn’t do stealth.

<Snip because I see no reason to quote vague statements.  That’s pretty much all you’re going to get from most of the liberals in the Church on homosexuality.  They’re not really fond of pointed questions and they definitely aren’t going to give pointed responses!>

The Council of Nine pledged allegiance to Pope Francis after a poster campaign in Rome and a satirical version of the Vatican newspaper were critical of the Pope in one week. German Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Council of Nine member has also said of the dubia, “the document [Amoris] is not as ambiguous as some people claim.”

OK, a couple of things here.  I’m not sure who chose the “Council of Nine” moniker.  Does anyone know who the “Council of Nine” were in Greek Mythology and what they gave us? Anyone? Homeschool mom here!  Aphrodite, Apollo, Athena, Demeter, Hephaestus, Hera, Hermes, Poseidon and Zeus. They gave mankind Pandora and Pandora’s Box.  For those of you rusty on the story, Pandora’s curiosity got the best of her, so she opened the box and released all of the misfortunes of mankind.  That’s also the name for the leaders of Church of Satan (which I just found out).  How’s that for ominous????  I’m so wondering if Cardinal Pell finds himself questioning how the heck he got there because he said all of this: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-pell-on-dubia-how-can-you-disagree-with-a-question

Next, this “poster war” is bizarre.  Nobody seems to know who was behind the original posters critical of the Pope, and then there was the next round in support of Pope Francis.  The second round of “poster war” in support of the Holy Father was not put out by a Catholic group but by the “Global Tolerance Initiative.”  This guy, Shaikh Mohammed, is behind the group:

Might I point out that the UAE doesn’t have the best record on women’s right nor tolerance towards homosexuals? Just a tad bit hypocritical. What’s even more bizarre is that it happened right around the same time this guy was appointed to the Vatican Communications office:

Let’s see what happens when you put the two together…

What does this have to do with anything?  Not much, but I’ve been dying to find a place to put this when I stumbled across this pictures in close proximity.   The resemblance in both hypocrisy and look was uncanny.  I just can’t help myself!  Seriously!  Brothers from another mother!

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Show…Me…the Canons!

Fight the false history, people!  Here’s a newsflash!  People who commit mortal sins should not be receiving Communion! This applies to you.  This applies to me.  This also applies to people who find themselves in really sad and/or hard situations. This does not now, nor has it ever meant, that said sinners are necessarily excommunicated.  That’s a whole separate issue.
Lately, I’ve seen many try to confuse the situation by suggesting that people who are not free to receive Communion are excommunicated.  Seems to be the new liberal strategy of the day.  The fact is, most people who may not receive Communion are simply in a state of mortal sin that doesn’t rise to the level of excommunication.

Now, some are creating imaginary canons and applying imaginary scenarios to them.  Ed Peters clarifies that nicely.  Might be nice if the Crux folks investigated a bit, but sadly, I think this is their chosen method of operation as of late.  They seem to be running on a “Let’s just say that John Paul II did something and hope nobody actually verifies it”, adding a “He who frames the question…” flourish, concluded with a “Repeat the lie until everyone believes it” move.

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/

Fr. James Keenan writing in Crux this week makes his own a question raised (last July, it seems) by Rocco Buttiglione in L’Osservatore Romano: “Is there any contradiction between the popes who excommunicated divorced and remarried persons and Saint John Paul II who lifted that excommunication?

That’s fake canon law. John Paul II never lifted any excommunication against divorced and remarried Catholics because, quite simply, there was no excommunication against divorced and remarried Catholics for him to lift. Shall we talk about it?

Let’s all watch Ed school those so desperate to admit all to Communion.

Buttiglione writes in the L’OR piece upon which Keenan draws: “Once upon a time, divorced and remarried persons were excommunicated and excluded from the life of the Church. That kind of excommunication disappears from the new Code of Canon Law and Familiaris Consortio, and divorced and remarried persons are now encouraged to participate in the life of the Church and to give their children a Christian upbringing. This was an extraordinarily courageous decision that broke from an age-old tradition. But Familiaris Consortio tells us that the divorced and remarried cannot receive the sacraments.

Gracious! However far back in Church history Buttiglione needs to search for an excommunication of divorced-and-remarried Catholics, he apparently thinks that the 1917 Code itself excommunicated divorced and remarried Catholics and that, only by making a “courageous decision that broke from an age-old tradition”, could John Paul II ‘disappear’ that “excommunication” from the new (1983) Code of Canon Law.

I’ve kind of learned along the way to ask for citations mainly because it’s fun to watch their heads explode when they don’t actually have one.  So much “fake Catholicism” out there nowadays, I really don’t trust much.

There is just one problem with Buttiglione’s and Keenan’s canonical narrative of a pope kicking down a penal door locked against divorced-and-remarried Catholics—and thus with their broader ‘if-John-Paul-could-then-Francis-can’ claim, namely: the 1917 Code did not excommunicate divorced and remarried Catholics.

Oops.

Oops is right, and it’s a biggie for Crux peeps!

Neither Buttiglione nor Keenan provide a citation for their claim about what canon law allegedly did up to the time of John Paul II (nor, come to think of it, did Abp. Scicluna who was, it now seems, uncritically repeating Buttiglione’s claim and extending it to embrace adulterers!), so one is left to guess at what they had in mind. But a couple of ideas occur to me, some of which I have addressed before.

Ed points out what I said earlier: the liberal spin doctors are in full swing with each repeating the error as truth and it won’t be long before they’re all parroting the same talking points.  It spreads like a wildfire.  The response we need to keep repeating in our best Jerry Maguire voice is “Show me the canons!”  Heck, let’s even slow it down a bit for dramatic effect.  “Show…me…the canons!”

Maybe Keenan and Buttiglione had in mind the Pio-Benedictine excommunication levied against Catholics who attempted marriage in violation of canonical form; problem is, this sanction was applicable to all Roman Catholics (not just to divorced-and-civilly-remarried ones) and, more importantly, it had already been abrogated by Paul VI in 1970, a dozen years before the 1983 Code went into force!

Or maybe Keenan the American (if not Buttiglione, an Italian) recalled when American Catholics who divorced and civilly remarried were indeed excommunicated for that offense; problem is, that rule was peculiar to American (not universal) canon law, it dated back only to 1884 (hardly ‘age-old’), and, most importantly, it too had already been abrogated in 1977—again by Paul VI, not John Paul II—several years before the 1983 Code was promulgated.

Cue Britney Spears, JCL: Oops, they did it again!

Or maybe by “new” Code of Canon Law, Buttiglione and Keenan meant the 1917 Code which, in its day, was certainly new; problem is, I can’t find an excommunication for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics in the main, pre-Code, penal document of the 19th century, Pius IX’s Apostolicae Sedis moderatione (1869). Do Buttiglione and Keenan know of one? Of course, even if one were found lurking somewhere, it had obviously ‘disappeared’ from codified canon law some 65 years before John Paul II arrived on the scene.

So, in short, John Paul II had zippo to do with lifting excommunications on divorced-and-civilly-remarried Catholics.  Is this just poor education on the part of Keenan, Buttiglione, Scicluna, and the growing number embracing this falsehood, or is it simply tactics on their part?  Regardless, thanks to Ed Peters for showing us the error of their ways.

Or maybe Buttiglione and Keenan understand by the term “excommunication” a much older usage that sometimes blurred the distinctions between “excommunication” (as a canonical penalty, c. 1331) and “denial of holy Communion” (as a sacramental disciplinary norm, c. 915); problem is, their claim about what John Paul II supposedly did demands that they use canonical terms as he and the Church understand them today—and as Buttiglione himself recognizes when he notes above that, despite the (alleged) lifting of a (non-existent) excommunication, divorced-and-remarried Catholics are still prohibited the sacraments (a statement wrong in some respects, but right enough in this regard).

So what does this mean? So much confusion exists about “excommunication.”  I often refer people to this and so I shall again: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05678a.htm  Excommunication is FAR different from not being free to receive Communion.  When you are excommunicated, you are barred from ALL of the Sacraments, public worship, and the Christian community in general. When you are in mortal sin, you are to refrain from Communion and encouraged to the hilt to cease sinning and get thyself to confession to rectify the mortal sin, but you are never to cease your Mass-going obligations.  Big difference!

So much contextualizing and back-storying, just to address one more fake canon law claim. But at least such research allows one to argue better not ‘if-John-Paul-could-then-Francis-can’, but rather ‘John-Paul-didn’t-and-Francis-shouldn’t’.

Sadly, it is necessary, Ed, and we thank you for doing so.  The question is, are people going to start doing their own homework or are they simply going to go with what’s most convenient for them to buy?  Honestly, people!  We’re talking about eternal life here!  It’s worth putting in just a little effort to go beyond the comfortable.  I mean, I’d love to believe that I no longer have to deal with hard situations in life and can just get to heaven because I mean well despite my sins, but I’m not so sure I’d be happy with the everlasting outcome of that stupid move.  I’m a mom.  The reality we employ around here is that the easy way, more often than not, is the wrong way, and at some point, the wrong way will bite us in the end.

If You Don’t Like Chicken Sandwiches, Don’t Have One!

My first thought when I read the title for the article below was “Is this another Jesuit school?”  Color me shocked!  It’s not.

http://www.faithwire.com/2017/04/12/college-students-fight-to-keep-chick-fil-a-off-campus-fearing-it-violates-safe-place-for-lgbtq-students/

College Students Fight to Keep Chick-fil-A Off Campus, Fearing It Violates ‘Safe Place’ for LGBTQ Students

Some students at a private, Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are apparently less than enthusiastic about the school’s decision to bring popular food chain Chick-fil-A to campus next fall.

The Duke — the official student newspaper of Duquesne University — recently covered the brewing controversy in a piece titled, “Student Group Leaders Concerned About Duquesne Chick-fil-A,” noting that the fast-food issue was recently taken up at a March 26 student government meeting.

I don’t know, you’d think something a little more urgent might fill up the meeting, but chicken sandwiches are pretty big in the lives of college students (or at least the ones who attend this university, apparently).

 

The outlet explains:

At the March 26 Student Government Association meeting, Senator at Large Niko Martini proposed that the SGA pass a resolution asking the university to reconsider the inclusion of Chick-fil-A as a dining option for students. […]

“Chick-fil-A has a questionable history on civil rights and human rights,” he said in a statement to The Duke. “I think it’s imperative the university chooses to do business with organizations that coincide with the [university’s] mission and expectations they give students regarding diversity and inclusion.”

OK, let’s just pause on the former for a moment and address the latter.  Human rights?  Please, oh, please, tell me where Chick-fil-A has violated human rights!  Has Dan Cathy set up concentration camps for homosexuals in his backyard or thrown them off the roofs of his restaurants, gassed citizens?!?!?  This is yet another bunch of irrelevant college kids who simply want their names in lights.  Chick-fil-A is nowhere near a serious situation.  In fact, it’s about a million miles away from one. Oh, and by the way , I’m reasonably sure the Obama administration would have sued them long ago over some bizarre interpretation of civil rights laws if it could have, but there wasn’t even the opportunity under their wacky interpretations to do so.

The SGA Senate did not pass any resolution but agreed to consider an alternate resolution to vett the Chick-fil-A Express, which senators tabled for the April 9 SGA meeting to allow time to research the concerns.

By all means, let us know what your congressional investigation reveals, you self-inflated adult wannabees!

These comments reportedly came after the school announced on March 20 that a Chick-fil-A Express would be included in dining options next fall — a decision that was apparently made based on student requests; it is unclear if the issue was taken up at the April 9 meeting as was stated in the article.

Wait!  College students want cheap chicken sandwiches?!?!  Imagine that. I have to wonder if these are also the students who don’t have mommy and daddy picking up the tab for “women’s studies” degrees.

“More than 245 college campuses around the country including Catholic University, Penn State University, Drexel University and the University of Pittsburgh have successfully brought Chick-fil-A onto their campuses, and more are doing the same in the next several years,” Scott Richards, executive director of Auxiliary Services, said in the March 20 announcement. “Now, our students will have the opportunity to enjoy the brand on our campus instead of having to travel to Oakland or the suburbs.”

Here’s the thing…If you don’t want to eat at Chick-fil-A, don’t!  If you’re against Traditional marriage, then don’t have…wait…seems to work for liberals when it comes to abortion. I suppose they won’t get this.

Clearly, not everyone was so enthusiastic.

Martini purportedly isn’t the only person with concerns either, as The Duke reported that the president of Lambda, a gay rights campus group, also has concerns about the restaurant’s planned presence, worrying that the “safe environment” and “safe place” the organization has worked to create on campus could be in jeopardy.

Oh my gosh!  Name one “unsafe” activity Chick-fil-A engages in other than possibly increasing heart disease!  Are they stoning homosexuals when they’re closed on Sundays?  Please.  Google “gay” and “chick-fil-a” and you’ll find a lot of homosexuals who aren’t willing to jump the shark (or skip a chicken sandwich) over a business owner’s personal beliefs, but the president of Lambda isn’t one of them.  One has to ask why the students don’t just boycott? If the overwhelming amount of students don’t eat there, they’ll close.  The Christian folk would wholeheartedly support their right to do it, too (speaking of civil rights).  Put your money (or don’t) where your beliefs lie and let the chips fall where they may.  It’s hard to believe (ok, it’s not) that this is the primary focus of students today.  No wonder they don’t function too well in society and have to retreat to their safe spaces.  I mean, someone disagreeing with them has become a human rights violation!

Student government president Olivia Erickson said that the governing body will look into campus concerns over Chick-fil-A by gathering student opinions on the matter, according to the article.

The piece did note that some students — even those who support same-sex relationships — are fine with Chick-fil-A coming to campus and see the restaurant’s presence as a good thing. While the article only attracted 11 comments, the majority favored the fast-food chain.

Exactly!  At least some level-headed kids can be found at this school.  Perhaps they’ve actually studied the history of their school.  It was started by the Holy Ghost Fathers who were literally thrown out of Germany by the secularists.  It’s actually quite interesting and the move by some on the “Student Government Association” seem to show they don’t even have a clue about it.  Hint: Kulturkampf.  Dear students, you’ve learned a lot about political correctness, perhaps too much, so maybe you should delve into history a little before you enter the real world. You’re running around like little Otto von Bismarcks.  

I realize reading these will cut into your liberal activism time but I have to do my best to keep you from looking so silly.   I’m a mom. I just can’t help it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duquesne_University

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulturkampf

Can I also point out that the Catholic Church, you know, the Church your school claims membership, is a little bit against “gay marriage.”  Don’t you think that it’s a teensy-weensy bit ironic you pay thousands to attend a Catholic school and then protest Chick-fil-A???  Yes, young friends, this is why you entertain us.  Some days you’re just like little rats lost in a maze when you could just stand up on your hind legs and see the big picture.

One man named John wrote, “Poor little snowflakes.” Another added that people who feel threatened by the “mere presence of a restaurant” might be in need of “psychological counseling.” And one member of the gay community also spoke out.

John, you give me hope.

“As a member of the gay community, I don’t feel like a fast food option being added to campus threatens my gay identity. At all. Subway has a history of being advertised by someone who is in jail for child porn. Do you believe small children feel threatened on campus? No. Because you can’t associate an entire company with one person’s actions,” the individual wrote.

He or she continued, “I’m gay. I love Chick-fil-A. Do I appreciate that they have made anti-gay movements in the past? No, obviously. But putting a small store on campus is not going to decimate the apparent “safe space” we have here. It’s chicken. It’s fine. Focus on a bigger issue.”

Amen, “member of the gay community!”

But someone who identified as “Prof Plum” did warn against “empowering a pro-hate company.”  Read the article and all of the comments for yourself here.

Alright, Professor.  You apparently led a very sheltered, placated life.  Let me help you.  Not supporting “gay marriage” does not equal hate.  People are being thrown off buildings, my young friend.  Murder = hate.

Chick-fil-A was the focus of boycotts in 2012 after CEO Dan Cathy said the Christian-owned company backs traditional marriage.

And the boycott was so successful that Dan Cathy changed his mind!  No?  It wasn’t successful and he made a boatload of money that year?!  The company didn’t fold?!!  If nothing else, please at least see the power of conviction, people!

Social Justice is from Womb to Tomb!

I’m sure Thomas Reese, SJ, Cardinal Cupich, Bishop McElroy, Fr. James Martin, SJ, and club are typing up a correction for Ms. Ratcliffe as we speak!  Wait!  What?!  No?  Surely they want to correct the error of her ways, right?  I mean, it rather messes up their seamless garment issue to have somebody actually expressing what most of the seamless garment crowd thinks anyway, right?  They’re supposed to be quiet about this, a concept clearly was lost on Ms. Ratcliffe:

http://bit.ly/2nBY6FJ

 

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 3, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – A representative from the George Soros-funded dissident group Catholics for Choice (CFC) said she supports Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, because “our Catholic social justice tradition compels us to stand with the poor and the most vulnerable in our society.”

So let’s just kill all their children.  No need to offer them real help.  Let’s just eliminate the poor and vulnerable children and call it social justice!  Nobody will notice that it’s largely genocide.

“Planned Parenthood does this every single day,” CFC’s Sara Ratcliffe told a Planned Parenthood rally on Capitol Hill Wednesday. “The Washington-led attacks against Planned Parenthood only serve to hurt the poorest and most rural in our communities.”

Yes, they do. Planned Parenthood eliminates (nice way of saying kills) minorities and the poor class. Every. Single. Day. By the thousands.

Planned Parenthood commits over 300,000 abortions annually, an act the authoritative teaching of the Church labels “intrinsically evil.”

It promotes and provides contraception and sterilization, both condemned by the Church. Planned Parenthood is also a leading source of sex education, encouraging children of “any age” to masturbate and teens to experiment with sadomasochism as well as other dangerous and bizarre sexual practices.

Details.  Details.  Surely there’s not a problem with Ms. Ratcliffe and “Catholics” for Choice dissenting from the teachings of the Church. I mean, if there was, I’m sure that the National catholic Reporter and America Magazine club would get on that and show the clear Church teaching on the subject. 

Come on, people! Catholicism isn’t a nationality.  It’s a belief.  If you don’t believe it, too bad, so sad, but let’s be just a little intellectually honest and admit that you don’t believe much, if anything, of what the Church actually teaches.  I realize that Satan’s big game is to divide from within but your slip is kind of showing, Sara. 

“Catholics in good conscience support access to reproductive health to the people who need it and Planned Parenthood provides it,” said Ratcliffe. “Catholics support the right for women to decide on their own healthcare based on their own conscience without interference. And Planned Parenthood helps us do that.”

Oh my ever loving goodness!  This gets so tedious, perpetually pointing out what would take a few seconds for any Catholic to find on Google.  First, would you like to quote a little Church teaching on that, Sara?  Didn’t think so.  I’m reasonably sure that you’d gladly quote Article 6, Section I, and say “Seeeeeee???” and just hope nobody reads on to Section II.  If you’re falling for it, please read just a tiny bit further (like the next citation)!
 

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a6.htm

1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

So, no, Ms. Ratcliffe.  A GOOD conscience is a well-formed conscience formed around the Church’s teachings, not your will. It’s really a simple concept actually written out for you.  Stay with me here. Your opinions are not authoritative teachings.  A shocker!  I know!

Also, just so I’ve done my due diligence in clearing up your fallacies, Ms. Ratcliffe, you REALLY might want to read Section IV:

IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT (AKA the part aimed squarely at Ms. Ratcliffe)

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.”59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

1793 If – on the contrary – the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time “from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith.“60 (So based on this, what is your conscience good and pure, Sara?)

The more a correct conscience prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and try to be guided by objective standards of moral conduct.61

As Ratcliffe addressed the Planned Parenthood supporters, Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins shouted that one cannot be truly Catholic and pro-abortion. Hawkins’ voice can be heard in the distance in the video below. 

OK, Kristan’s a convert so I’m sure she might not be up on everything, but she’s in the same boat with a lot of other Catholics.  Just because you are a bad Catholic doesn’t mean you are not Catholic.  I’m a real stickler for this.  Ms. Ratcliffe could even renounce the Faith and she’d still be Catholic.  Baptism is an indelible mark.  Ms. Ratcliffe is most certainly a dissenting and poorly practicing Catholic, and if the clergy really loved her, they would’ve let her have it like most good parents would when their children stray toward danger.  Sadly, many ignore because it’s inconvenient, makes a news story they don’t want to be in, or simply doesn’t fit their seamless garment narrative.  Bad on them.  Obviously, this woman’s soul doesn’t mean as much to them as it should.  And then there’s the thousands of souls she leads astray everyday almost (just ignore this, you guys trying to wake her up) unchecked.  In fact, that’s why she’s able to do it.  Not on me!

“Equality, fairness, treating others with compassion, the right to social justice for everyone: these are Catholic values,” continued Ratcliffe. “These are what Catholics for Choice stands for, these are what Planned Parenthood stands for, and as Catholics, we stand with Planned Parenthood not in spite of our Catholic tradition but because of it.”

Equality, fairness, treating others with compassion for everyone except the truly most vulnerable – the completely defenseless human beings at both ends of life. If they’re inconvenient, they must go!  Sorry, sister. Social justice begins in the womb and ends in the tomb.  And please, you wouldn’t know “Catholic tradition” if it bit you in the behind.  You can’t really be this clueless, can you?  I suppose with the help of the American seamless (or is it more like seamy-ful?) hierarchy, you could be.  Sigh.

Ratcliffe used euphemisms like “each woman’s choice” and “access to reproductive health” rather than name abortion directly. Her speech didn’t mention God, any specific Catholic teachings, the Bible, or prayer.

I’m sure she wasn’t quoting the Catechism either.  As usual, she’s just hoping to steal as many souls as possible before people catch on.  The sad thing is that the people in desperate situations, the ones who need REAL help, the ones she tries desperately to convince that Planned Parenthood has their best interest at heart, are the victims of her spin job.  Thanks to all of you great people praying in front of Planned Parenthood as often as you can, offering true help to these potential victims!