Thursday, July 08, 2004

But what is there to study, Your Eminence?

The Church has always taught that abortion is the killing of the innocent and intrinsically evil. When some of us were growing up, men in organized crime were denied burial in sacred ground. What are these abortion clinics other than killing houses?

Catholicism used to produce a different kind of prelate. In 1953, Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans issued a pastoral letter: "(L)et there be no further discrimination or segregation in the pews, at the Communion rail, at the confessional and in parish meetings, just as there will be no segregation in the kingdom of heaven."

Resistance to integration of the parochial schools was fierce. The battle went on for a decade. Catholics appealed to the Vatican. Pius XII backed up the archbishop. In the Louisiana Legislature, bills were introduced forbidding integration of the Catholic schools, bills supported by Catholic legislators. The archbishop's response was to threaten the Catholic lawmakers with excommunication.

When the rabid segregationist Leander Perez of Plaquemine Parish persisted, Archbishop Rummel excommunicated him and the head of the Citizens Council of Louisiana for "continuing to provoke the devoted people of this venerable archdiocese to disobedience or rebellion in the matter of opening our schools to all Catholic children."

Now, there was an archbishop.

Cardinal McCarrick should take this as a challenge – and ask himself how St. Thomas More would have reacted to this threat. Then, go forth and do likewise, Your Eminence.
Full Article.


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