Debunking the "Common Ground"

1. Here is a thorough demolition of the effort (e.g., by Prof. Kmiec and others in the "common ground" crowd) to resurrect the "seamless garment" approach to Catholic social teaching in an effort to minimize the pre-eminent importance of the Church's actual teachings on life and marriage, in order to justify cooperation with the policies of the current Administration. This is a central issue to the "common ground" debate -- what position will we take on the intrinsically evil laws of our country that permit abortion on demand? Will we accept them and work instead on other issues, or will we concentrate our efforts on resisting the infamy? I posted about this at my ArchNY blog.

2. Not even waiting a discrete length of time, the polygamists are now knocking on the door, demanding "marriage" too. That slippery slope got pretty steep, pretty fast, didn't it?

3. A new bill in the UK could force Catholic schools, nursing homes, etc. to take down religious images if a non-Catholic finds them to constitute "harassment", which is defined nebulously as "unwanted conduct ... with the purpose or effect of violating a person's dignity". Note the word "effect" -- the standard is entirely subjective, and subjects religious liberty to the whims of those with the most sensitive delicacies.

4. Elsewhere in the UK, though, the parents of sextuplets report that they were advised to abort some of their babies, but they refused.

5. Statistics suggest the prevalence of sex-selection (including abortions) among Asian-Americans.

6. Kathryn Jean Lopez defends pro-lifers against the implication in the media that we're all dangerous lunatics.

7. Glowing reviews for a book about a guy who's in prison for making explosives that he planned to use to promote his political cause. Oh, don't worry, he's not a pro-lifer, he's an animal rights fanatic, so his brand of violence is apparently okay.

8. The University of San Fransisco, a school in the Jesuit tradition, honors the famous fourth vow of the Society of Jesus (special obedience to the Holy Father) by giving an award to a bishop from South America who dissents from the Church's teaching, recently re-iterated by the Holy Father himself, on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. My favorite quote, from a Catholic faculty member: "Calling USF a Catholic school is like saying Hillary Clinton is a Carmelite nun."

9. One of the State Senators who flipped, has apparently flipped back (I guess they finally found his price). An even split in the Senate equals confusion and paralysis.

10. A Cistercian monk asks some good questions: Why are there no Cistercian conspiracy theories? Why are they always about the Templars or Opus Dei? How about some equal time here?