Brownback – Turncoat
I am not a politician, I am a priest. So I would like to give my priestly perspective about the recent endorsement of Senator Sam Brownback for the candidacy of Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services: Senator Brownback’s cowardly betrayal of his Catholic faith is even more damaging than his political permission for this renegade to take office.
The situation is atrocious. An extremist abortion hack (called the most pro-abortion governor in the nation by many), who falsely calls herself “Catholic,” is given the opportunity to preside over the nation’s healthcare system and normalize abortion even further; this radical is then endorsed by a US senator who also calls himself “Catholic” and who, many believe, wants her job back home when she becomes the abortion queen in DC.
With pro-lifers like Senator Sam Brownback, who needs pro-aborts?
Moral theologians can work out what level of cooperation in evil the Senator’s endorsement represents – he is, after all, an influential senator whose opposition, if he had given it, may very well have stopped her nomination. Yet, those of us who do not breathe the rarified air of Washington DC and who have dedicated our lives to defending the sanctity of human life understand one thing: any covenant with the abortion industry or its promoters is consent to the killing.
As a convert to the Catholic Faith, Senator Brownback seems not to understand the Church’s profoundly wounded heart with regard the slaughter of the innocents. The Church tells us never to participate in that slaughter, no matter what the cost; we do not give aid and comfort to the enemies of human life, we do not stand by while the innocent are being dragged off to a violent murder, and under no circumstances do we endorse the political aspirations of their executioners.
Politicians who sell the lives of babies for political gains are the worst kind of turncoats.Yet, this Catholic Senator’s decision constitutes, I think, a watershed moment for all of us who want to see an end to the immoral industry of baby-killing in our country. We will never be served by the compromise of our principles in any form. Catholicism is the solution to this culture of death. If only Catholics ourselves would fully live up to our doctrine and put it into practice, there would be no “Tiller the Killer”s in Kansas, no partial birth abortions, no immoral sex education in the schools or Planned Parenthoods dominating our public life.
Self-described “Catholics” like Brownback (in politics), Doug Kmiec (in academia), Hannity, Matthews and O’Reilly (in media) and others are not the solution to the problem – they are enablers of the problem. Despite their high-sounding lip service to the culture of life, they are compromisers. They will never end abortion because they don’t want to end abortion.I have often said that false Catholics, whether they be Cardinals, politicians or janitors, are the ones who have the most to account for on the Day of Judgment when they will have to account for ignoring Christ in His “least brethren,” the unborn. Whether through advocacy of the evil (like Sebelius) or negligence in stopping it (like Brownback), they have blood on their hands. They’ve been given everything the Church has to offer: the teaching, the sacraments, the example of the saints and the grace to stand against Satan and all his works and all his empty promises. In other words, they know better, and the Biblical warning applies to them: “To whom much has been given, much will be required.”
Cowards and turncoats beware.
Sincerely,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International
Re-read your whole piece and you will see that you hold every level accountable but the Pope and he is where your problem is. He congradulated Obama on his election sooner than the ordinary time for such congradulations. What lesson did Brownback draw from that congradulation? The Bishops have failed as to Catholic pols ever since Cuomo. By now the Popes should have then picked up the ball since subsidiarity failed at the local level. But no Pope does a thing. What lesson is Brownback to draw from that. During the 1960’s for 8 years there was an interdict forbidding all sacraments to the Malta Labor Party thus the interdict was by group and not by geography and a pope could do that easily to the Catholic pro choice pols.
A. the Popes are too busy being authors of books
B. the Popes are creating an image of hands off management so that the Prots and Orthodox will not fear coming back under their authority….won’t work….humans smell manipulative techniques a mile away but clericalism has our clergy including Popes think that it is working.
Ave Maria!
Bill,
I too find that these are frustrating times in regard to pro-abort politicians being given leniency for too long. But as you say the principle of subsidiarity is a Catholic principle and this issue should have been dealt with on the local level, i.e. Diocesan Bishops. Certainly Pope Benedict XVI has been very firm on this issue and many more Bishops are confronting their politician sheep. In fact, it seems the pope is the chief driving force behind this new spirit of firm but pastoral confrontation which has not gone unnoticed by the secular media and power circles.
In what activity (not writing) in what activity has Benedict been firm?
I see nothing.
I wanted to comment and thank the author, good stuff