VATICAN CITY, LifeSiteNews:
In what would appear to be a first, the Vatican has succumbed to a common practice among abortion advocates and repeatedly mentioned the pro-abortion term “pro-choice” in a recent letter describing politicians who support abortion.
Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), used the terminology in a May 7 letter to Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Cardinal Ladaria was writing in response to Archbishop Gomez’s letter to the CDF informing the congregation that the U.S. bishops were drawing up a policy on the distribution of Holy Communion to politicians who support abortion.
Of these, Joe Biden is the most prominent and well known of Catholics in the public life who support abortion. Any USCCB policy on distributing Holy Communion would be in response to issues the Church would face from Biden, as Archbishop Gomez outlined in his letter after Biden’s inauguration in January.
In his letter admonishing Gomez for such a plan, Cardinal Ladaria employed the term “pro-choice” four times. He referred to “pro-choice politicians” twice, as well as “pro-choice legislation” and a “pro-choice position.”
One such example of the CDF’s use of this term is given when noting how local bishops should “reach out to and engage in dialogue with Catholic politicians within their jurisdictions who adopt a pro-choice position regarding abortion legislation, euthanasia, or other moral evils, as a means of understanding the nature of their positions and their comprehension of Catholic teaching.”
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong because it kills an innocent human being, thus violating the Church’s prohibition on murder, and that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved” (CCC 2270-2272; CCC 2357).
Furthermore, popes and members of the hierarchy have consistently referred to supporters of abortion in precise terms, not the ambiguous “pro-choice” as favored by abortion supporters.
In Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, he referred to abortion supporters as “pro-abortion” and used the widespread “pro-life” when referring to those who sought to defend the right to life of the unborn.
While abortion advocates such as Biden promote the right of mothers to “choose” whether to have an abortion or not, John Paul II firmly rejected the notion that a Catholic could hold this position: “We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the ‘culture of death’ and the ‘culture of life.’ We find ourselves not only ‘faced with’ but necessarily ‘in the midst of’ this conflict: we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life.”
In 2002, then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the CDF’s letter “Doctrinal note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life,” echoing the Pope’s words. Cardinal Ratzinger stated that Catholics “have the right and the duty to recall society to a deeper understanding of human life and to the responsibility of everyone in this regard. John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.”
Indeed, the 1974 CDF document “Declaration on Procured Abortion” was firm about the danger of the terminology and arguments of the so called pro-choice movement. “One can never claim freedom of opinion as a pretext for attacking the rights of others, most especially the right to life,” the CDF wrote.
However, abortion advocates have long utilized the term “pro-choice” as a means to separate the abortion argument from the gruesome reality of the murder of the unborn. In fact, Human Life International (HLI) documented how using the term “pro-choice” was the “greatest marketing triumphs of the abortion movement.”
HLI reminded readers how Dr. Bernard Nathanson, himself a founding member of pro-abortion lobby group NARAL and later a pro-lifer, wrote, “I remember laughing when we made those slogans up. We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion. They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are very, very cynical.”
Despite some wavering in the pro-abortion lobby about continued use of the 1970’s originated term today, it still remains the standard way by which abortion advocates and supporters describe themselves. For instance, abortion lobby group NARAL includes the term in its official title “NARAL pro–choice America.”
So also does the National Abortion Federation, which has as its website name prochoice.org.
These high profile examples offer an insight into what the term has come to mean in modern society, namely “the right to choose abortion,” as NARAL itself wrote.
With its adoption of the pro-abortion terminology, the Vatican appears to be taking making an ideological surrender, which Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger would have sternly warned against.
Speaking to LifeSiteNews, a representative of Restoring the Faith media warned of the power of the Vatican’s words: “Words are not merely a useful conveyance of ideas or information; they contain within themselves an inalienable meaning and power. To wave the white flag and surrender the language is worse than a tactical defeat, it is no less than an abdication of moral authority, perhaps even a treasonous betrayal of the battle-scarred troops fighting for the cause of life.”
This was echoed by catechist and Catholic author Deacon Nick Donnelly, who wrote to LifeSite via social media: “Only five months ago the CDF issued a statement trumpeted around the world as the Church accepting ‘vaccines’ from babies murdered through abortion. Now it has adopted the euphemism ‘pro-choice’ used to hide the abominable reality of abortion. That the CDF could use such a phrase shows how far the curial officials have abandoned even Vatican II’s understanding of abortion as an ‘unspeakable crime.’ (GS 51) For the two billion-plus babies murdered in the ‘silent holocaust’ of abortion, this was ‘no-choice.’”
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
Does the church leadership know how weak their words make them look? Will anyone make a stand?
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Reblogged this on Zero Lift-Off and commented:
Let me start out with what Saint John Paul II said about our society or modern world many times when he was here on earth and I can still hear him today in my memory and heart; I truly love the man and the great Pope that he was for our Church! He said we are living in a culture of death and I knew precisely what he was saying when I heard that the first time! Look at all the violence depicted in movies and other forms of entertainment, even computer games that children play such as Fortnite where very lively and somewhat realistic graphics memorize kids with blood lust and rape all kinds of mayhem and killing! This is absolutely to me a form of glorification of killing or even a worshiping of violence for thrills and satisfaction and a steady diet of this on a child’s mind absolutely has to leave damage or scar tissue in a sense that will have effects on hat person in many ways! One thinks we all have heard is how people are becoming desensitized to violence and is it any wonder! Then with the devaluation of life this way; say as compared to taking children on field trips to learn and understand how our Eco-system works and let them discover the many tiny animals that live in the soil or in the grasses in this way which is a beautiful thing to gain understanding and appreciation of the amazing web of life! Then too mutual cooperation with peers and learning to appreciate each other for our amazing gifts that each individual has and lean to love each other making lasting friendships, all of which is far more productive and closer to saintly behavior than playing let’s kill for excitement!
My main point is after we honestly examine what kind of society we have created and see the rampant violence and devaluation or lack of appreciation for life in general, and then specifically human beings; we should expect to get the return we have now with life so cheapened that Pro-Choice or Planned Parenthood call aborted fetuses just tissue; I guess as I see this they mean just some gooey stuff that comes out of a girl’s body when they suck it out with a vacuum to Dispose of it or perhaps experiment with like taking scalps from babies heads and attaching them to mice! All this so she who got rid of an unwanted pregnancy that she helped cause can be on her merry way and have more fun in life and not be dealing with responsibility for your own actions, and body’s capabilities or thinking about such things as morality and virtues! One heck of a pretty picture we have going of what we collectively are creating for future generations of earthly bipedal creatures that rule the planet; ehh!
I think what I have to defer to here and will forever maintain as my only way of thinking about all of this is what our great saint John Paul II said here; “John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.” So these people he is talking about say like a Biden the epitome of a far left radical politician who just appropriated about 500 Billion dollars to fund as many abortion centers here and overseas as possible, to basically kill human babies off on an industrial scale which makes him absolutely an immoral man and his soul can’t have any chance of going to heaven; but will be in hell for eternity, I have no doubt in my mind or heart; as he is pushing mass murder of innocent helpless babies like he couldn’t care less! This is a foregone conclusion in my analyzing of all the facts and therefore he is either a sociopathic maniac or even worse, demonically influenced or possessed and most probable all the above!
All this brings us to the part about a Culture of Death! Oh yes we most certainly are in that type of world now and its getting much worse each year with these far left absolute Marxist’s, tyrants and heartless power mongers ceasing more control by the week! Getting people woke!
I was reading another bloggers posting that she writes overseas and some of it was nice, her being a bit young and searching for her focus as I saw it, but then I saw some of her followers and one image made me curios it was a profile for a medical doctor who on her blog site have so many posting making fun of religion and saying how it’s all false and fairy-tales and she respects us who want to have those religious ideas but she will never respect what we believe in and she basically was saying she hates those things and dictated in her speech, don’t dare try to push our beliefs on her that is brainwashing and hateful; but yet she is trying to spell out her own intolerant despising hate and not label it as such! So I looked at more photos of her and in her laughing smile and eyes I picked up on something I’ve learned with the grace of God to recognize and saw demonic influence for sure, perhaps worse; as well some of the other things she was tossing out to confuse issues and pronounce her certainty of being absolutely right in all she says! I saw immediately how dangerous and wicked this person is; and my point is, this is what we are up against in the medical industry and politics, many such tainted or even evil people that have controlling influence or positions over many other human’s, and some that are very vulnerable, so you can’t be unsure at all about if we are in the Culture of Death and Evil! This is why so many so called doctors went along with the COVID SARS 2 fraud of cooking the books and skewing the death rate due to COVID and even killing off vulnerable senior citizens in nursing homes; either that or lose their job or medical license for not treating according to the decided protocol, none of the actual curative remedies and stuff a ventilator down their windpipe to over stress the fragile tissue and cause bleeding then double pneumonia with certain death quickly! I fought my own legal case well over three years in court alone; for a severe pulmonary work related injury and know a fair amount about these issues! All I can say to all this is we can’t have much time for this world now, before Jesus returns; to end it and judge it all!
Thank you for this very to the heart of it article that certainly helps, and we pray that God’s answer to all of this evil; is coming sooner rather than later! Amen.
Brother in Christ Jesus,
Lawrence Morra III
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