When is an archbishop not an archbishop?

An archbishop is not an archbishop when he wants to talk against abortion and pro-choice Catholic politicians.

That's a neat trick if you can do it.

Charles J. Chaput (rhymes with kaput) is the archbishop of the Denver archdiocese. On Friday evening, October 17, Chaput spoke at a Catholic women's dinner. Guess what? He doesn't like Obama.

Chaput said that Obama's the "most committed" abortion-rights candidate from a major party since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Bad, bad, Obama!

Then he took after a Catholic law professor named Douglas Kmiec who wrote a book suggesting that "good" Catholics could vote for Obama. Eric Gorski, AP religion writer put it this way: "He argues the Obama campaign is premised on Catholic social teaching like care for working families and the poor and foreign policy premised on peace over war. Democratic efforts to tackle social and economic factors that contribute to abortion hold more promise ... than Republican efforts to criminalize it."

Hmmm. In other words, while Obama upholds the right of women to choose, he also believes abortions are a serious matter. But Obama respects women and the right of women to choose in this most personal of matters. Furthermore, Obama's policies would actually result in fewer abortions than would a policy of banning all abortions, which is, of course, the Roman Catholic position.

The archbishop of Denver did not want to hear that. Oh no. Catholics who would vote for Obama "seek to contextualize, demote and then counterbalance the evil of abortion with other important but less foundational social issues," preached the archybishoprick.

What does this really mean? Roman Catholics like archbishop Chaput cannot see beyond their own noses, number one. Number two, it really comes down to control. The Catholic church does not respect women! The Roman church has always been about control and through the abortion issue it controls the women of the church.

The fact is that Obama's approach leads to less abortions. That should be a good thing. But it would mean the church would lose control of the women and that would never do, so Obama's gotta go.


Pro-life always refers to abortion. Pro-lifers are often the most adamant supporters of capital punishment and war. Pro-lifers are often not pro-life at all, they are merely anti-abortion. Someone once castigated the Roman Catholic bishops for not speaking out against the bombing of women and children in North Vietnam. He said that if U.S. planes were dropping condoms, the bishops would be screaming in protest. Bombs that killed innocent people were okay.


And then, one final, important question arises:

How can this archbishop speaking to a group of Catholic women address a political issue and suggest that Catholics cannot, in good conscience, vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, or for any Catholic politician who fails to follow to the letter the church's rule regarding abortion?

Does this not violate the law? Well, in fact, it does. But that has never bothered Roman Catholic poohbahs, either, for they believe they are the representatives of the one, true Church, which is the representative of God on earth.

And, said the archbishop, he wasn't speaking as a clergyman person, he was speaking as a private citizen. Ha, ha, ha.

He stands there in his clerical garb, addressing a Catholic women's dinner as the archbishop of Denver and he says he spoke as a "private citizen."

It just ain't that easy, archybishop. You broke the law.