Worthy of public office, or not?

With a tip of the biretta to Catholic Fire, this quote is from His Excellency Most Reverend Robert Vasa, Bishop of Santa Rosa in California.

“Any government leader, particularly those who claim to be Christian, who claims to be pro-choice, is unworthy of public office.”

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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26 Comments

  1. James Joseph says:

    That’s it!

    Forget the way to San Jose, I’m moving to Santa Rosa.

  2. Athanasius says:

    And Bishop Vasa will or will not be backing the wall street funded, pro-choice Romney?

  3. rodin says:

    I’ll drink to that. Maybe that will help fortify me for tonight’s blather.

  4. mamajen says:

    If our priests and bishops would leave it at that, I think we would be a lot better off. Instead, around election time I hear sermons that tend to leave that part out and make other “social issues” seem of vital importance. It’s easy to see how pro-choice liberals get elected by Catholics.

  5. wmeyer says:

    mamajen: Sad but true. Social justice is the catch-all code word for pay-no-attention-to-his-faults, vote for him even though he supports abortion, because he wants to take more tax money to distribute as welfare.

  6. cgvnau says:

    If only there were more people who agreed with Bishop Vasa on this…

  7. wmeyer says:

    The difficulty is that the current Catholic population has been coddled with years of no accountability, follow-your-malformed-conscience teaching, and even bishops who voted for O.

    From what well of strength can most of them be expected to find the strength to vote against O now? And why would they? Whose example, exactly, would they be following?

  8. frjim4321 says:

    It seems that many hierarchs don’t understand the nature of political discourse. We have a polarized situation in which it is expected for democrats to be pro-choice and republicans to be anti-choice. The fact is the president has little control over the constitution – it is what it is. On the other hand the principal driver for abortion is poverty, and little is said from either party regarding that crucial issue. It seems that the most conscientious vote would be for the candidate least likely to accelerate the explosion of poverty in our land thus further reducing the rate of abortion.

  9. “Any government leader, particularly those who claim to be Christian, who claims to be pro-choice, is unworthy of public office.”

    I’ve been saying that for decades. That’s why they have to be stopped at the bottom, before they make their way to the top. An abortionist isn’t fit to be dog catcher much less a senator or President.

  10. Sword40 says:

    May God grant Bishop Vasa a long life in service with the church. Wish he were my Bishop.

  11. Centristian says:

    frjim4321:

    In the first place, it is constitutionally given to the president to nominate and appoint justices to the Supreme Court, the institution which we may thank for legalized abortion in the United States, (not the Constitution).

    Secondly, I’m dismayed that a priest would use the term “anti-choice” is af it could possibly make him seem more sophisticated in anyway. I would think that the very least thing that a priest should be pro…is life.

    Finally, is poverty really the principal driver for abortion as opposed to a culture wherein sex has become a pastime and women are regarded as mere playthings by (some) men (more than others), to be taken advantage of by them at will and cast aside just as quickly? Has it nothing to do with a culture that regards children as an inconvenience rather than a blessing amongst affluent men and women alike, who live for pleasure, success, and independence rather than home and hearth?

    It seems to me that the most conscientious vote would be for the candidate least likely to appoint leftist justices to the Supreme Court and most likely to address fundamental values that we, as a people, have lost sight of.

    The only quibble there is for one to have with Bishop Vasa’s quote is the fact that it is gramatically incorrect. He ought to have said, “particularly one who claims to be Christian”. Apart from that, however, he’s got it quite right, hasn’t he?

  12. Trad Catholic Girl says:

    I have seen a lot of conjecture on this blog about President Obama being pro-abortion but haven’t seen any facts to back it up. Could someone provide proof or point me to a site that supports this line of thinking? I’m having a hard time believing this viewpoint.

  13. Centristian says:

    Trad Catholic Girl:

    There’s no conjecture. See this (from this very blog) regarding just the latest…

    https://wdtprs.com/2012/01/robert-george-on-pres-obamas-attacks-on-religious-freedom-and-catholics/

  14. pm125 says:

    What state follows permissive? Guessing that a society of me’s has gone so far beyond being permissive, that without the Guide of the Ten Commandments (the Sixth bringing on the Fifth) in public, the word should be changed to philistine-istic. Maybe they’ve been staging a return?

  15. Cathy says:

    My parents were terribly poor when they got married. Their first bedroom set was a mattress on top of milk crates. My mom was pregnant with her first child in 1958. She recalled, during that time, going to a party with my dad when a very well-dressed woman began screaming at her husband to look at how poor my parents were, yet they got to have a baby while she had to have an abortion. Perhaps taking the life of their child meant they got to dress nicer and have nicer things. Of all the struggles of poverty that my parents had to deal with early in life, they never had to deal with the poverty of killing their child in order to struggle less or to have more. We ate a lot of red noodles – macaroni with tomato sauce – but I never thought my family was poor. As for me, I’d rather live in a very poor country where taking the life of one’s own child was considered an unthinkable crime, than to live in a rich country that thought the fear of poverty, or any other fear was a reasonable excuse to tear a child from his/her mother’s womb.

  16. ContraMundum says:

    @Trad Catholic Girl

    There are many places you could find this information. Just Google “Mexico City Policy”; one of Obama’s first acts was to rescind that policy, so that federal funds could go to the funding of abortions overseas.

    There’s lots more.
    http://www.issues2000.org/social/Barack_Obama_Abortion.htm
    http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/abortion/192685-naral-abortion-can-help-obama-win-back-defectors

  17. mamajen says:

    @Trad Catholic Girl

    You are joking, right? Right? Please say you are joking.

    http://townhall.com/columnists/robertgeorge/2008/10/15/obamas_abortion_extremism/page/full/

    http://catholicsagainstobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/barack-obama-and-the-born-alive-infant-protection-act/

    Oh, and did you hear that he made a statement on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade?

    http://www.barackobama.com/news/entry/on-the-39th-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade

    You’re joking, right?

  18. Fr_Sotelo says:

    Fr. Jim: “anti-choice.” Are you being serious? You are the first priest I have seen use that offensive term. Now while you’re at it, just call me a dirty spice, since I’m also Mexican!

  19. Fr_Sotelo says:

    That should read “dirty spic” not spice LOL.

  20. AnAmericanMother says:

    Fr.Jim,
    “Anti-choice”?? Really ??!!??!!
    That probably was a good deal more revealing than you meant it to be.

  21. irishgirl says:

    Bravo to Bishop Vasa!
    And I’ll echo what AnAmericanMother just said about Fr. Jim: “Anti-choice???? Really?!?!?!”
    [shaking my head over that one!]

  22. Jim Ryon says:

    Troll n.
    One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup, message board or combox with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.

    Is trolling sinful, especially when done by a priest?

  23. Johnno says:

    frjim4321

    Bwahaha! You think getting rid of poverty will lower abortions? Even wealthy and well-off people will abort… after all that’s time and money they’d rather spend elsewhere on themselves rather than some unwanted inconvenient amount of children, thus making their lives a little more poorer… People will always find convenient excuses to abort, from lack of money, to being unwilling to put in the work to raise a child, to wanting more sex but no more ‘risks’ of children, to wanting to fit into that dress in time for some social event, to just plain old fashioned covering up of adultery and abuse.

    Either way, murdering people is not a strategy to reduce poverty. In fact it is argued by the very people you’re pinning your hopes on to reduce poverty that eliminating a good amount of the global population will help save more resources for the rest of us. And the way to reduce that risk of poverty is directly attributed to promoting immoral sexual lifestyles and abortion for all. A wikileaks article exposed one of the U.S. reasons for pushing abortions overseas in the Philippines was so that the U.S. could have more access to the country’s natural resources rather than its own people. How shameful and utterly selfish!

  24. frjim4321 says:

    Centristian and Fr_Sotelo, I can’t think of a more logically correct term that “anti-choice” because de facto those who oppose abortion do not want people to have the choice of elective abortion. Further, many of those who call themselves “pro-life” are very soft on many life issues other than abortion. For example I have heard self proclaimed “pro-lifers” advocate for capital punishment, etc. “Pro-life” would imply that one has a consistent ethic of life in all respects, and not merely in the single issue of abortion.

  25. frjim4321 says:

    For the record I am staunchly opposed to elective abortion and the use of tax dollars to pay for them. Just because I am analytic in my use of terminology does not mean I am a “troll.”

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