….With the exception perhaps of Pope St. John Paul II, whose pro-life efforts Benedict XVI continued and expanded on, few can match his record.
From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI used his role as pope to emphasize the right to life and combat the “plague” of abortion.
In his first book published after his papal election, Benedict doubled-down on the Church’s pro-life stance, stressing that “There is no such thing as ‘small murders.’”
While performing his first baptisms as pope, he took the opportunity to assail the “culture of death” and “irresponsible” sexuality that lead
s to it.
“As far as the right to life is concerned, we must denounce its widespread violation in our society,” Benedict said in his 2007 message for the World Day of Peace, an event that he typically used to promote the defense of life.
“How can it be that the most wondrous and sacred human space – the womb – has become a place of unutterable violence?” he lamented at World Youth Day the following year.
Respect for life featured regularly in his monthly prayer intentions and animated his foreign trips.
He began his first papal visit to Latin America by endorsing the excommunication of pro-abortion politicians, and during a powerful speech in Austria, urged political leaders “not to allow children to be considered as a form of illness.”
In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Benedict passionately condemned abortion as a “tragic and widespread scourge,” linking it to “systematic eugenic programming of births” and “a pro-euthanasia mindset” that deems certain lives “no longer worth living.” He gave a copy of the encyclical and Vatican guidelines against embryonic research and contraception to Barack Obama during their first meeting.
Across his addresses and teachings, Pope Benedict XVI notably identified the right to life as a “non-negotiable” value, often alongside the protection of marriage and parental and conscience rights.
“As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person,” he told members of the European People’s Party in 2006, highlighting, first of all, “protection of life in all its stages….”
The German pontiff also showed his deep concern for life with his many personal interventions in political debates about abortion and euthanasia, particularly in the Catholic world.
He endorsed a campaign to defund abortion in the E.U. in 2013, denounced pro-abortion legislation in Mexico City, and backed pro-lifers as they rallied against it.
Pope Benedict XVI congratulated the Nicaraguan government in 2007 for banning all abortions, and later praised Malta for doing the same.
As Luxembourg debated a bill to legalize euthanasia, he condemned the legislation and the “evil” practice, calling on the predominately Catholic country to “reaffirm the greatness and inviolable character of human life.”
And unlike his successor, Benedict XVI had no love for pro-abortion politicians – a fact Nancy Pelosi discovered when he publicly embarrassed her with an unusually firm rebuke.
Just days before Brazil’s 2010 presidential election, Benedict took clear shots at the country’s Labor Party and presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff in an address urging Brazilian bishops to speak out against abortion. He bluntly condemned “political projects” that “contemplate the decriminalization of abortion,” as the Labor Party and Rousseff had.
A statement he had approved earlier as pope declared pro-abortion legislation “incompatible with participation in the Eucharist.”
Benedict’s opposition to dissident Catholic lawmakers, in fact, predated his papacy. As the Vatican’s longtime doctrinal chief under Pope St. John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, ruled that public officials have a “grave and clear obligation” to resist “any law that attacks human life.”
“For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them,” he stated.
In a memo to the U.S. bishops before the 2004 presidential election, the cardinal added that supporting “permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” requires denial of Communion, though that message was suppressed by the now disgraced then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and then-Archbishop Wilton Gregory, the Francis-appointed current head of the Archdiocese of Washington….
Full story at LifeSiteNews.
And what good did it do? Until bishops muster the courage to excommunicate Catholic politicians, all their talk against abortion, same-sex unions, gender ideology, and so forth is just blowing hot air. It’s like watching a man beat his wife and telling him that he shouldn’t beat his wife. Then when he beats his wife again, you remind him that it’s wrong to beat his wife. Man up!
The situation in the American church is even worse than your analogy indicates. The American bishops are like men who watch other men beat their wives, tell them it’s wrong to do that, but then invite and warmly welcome them into their homes for Sunday dinner every week even after they continue to beat their wives and say that they aren’t going to stop beating their wives. Oh, and they love to have their pictures taken with those guys too.
Bishops cannot excommunicate Catholic politicians for how they vote. Do you mean that they should be told not to approach communion? Many have been told that.
Is that how communion works, a bishop tells a man to quit beating his wife or he cannot receive communion? No, it is not.
We are all under the same law. If aware of grave sin, we are to go to confession before approaching to receive communion.
We are not supposed to use communion to influence people politically, to make people do what we want.
Yet, it appears they could be excommunicated for formal cooperation with abortion. Formal cooperation means that the person cooperating intends, desires, or approves the wrongdoer’s conduct, according to the Catholic Health Association. Funding it would seem to imply intention or approval. As the Vatican clarification states, “Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,” (Code of Canon Law, can. 1398)
The issue is not politics, the issue is enabling the killing of innocent babies by voting to make it legal and to fund it.
The Church does not excommunicate Catholic politicians for voting for abortion rights.
Maybe it will someday but as of now, it does not.
It is still a grave sin and a Catholic politician who has voted for abortion right laws and not repented and confessed should not go to communion.
The debate in the US has centered around whether these politicians should be denied communion if they do approach.
I have never seen excommunication even discussed.
The excommunication affects all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and thus includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed.
Evanglium Vitae 62
That is the most that I can find in Church documents.
In paragraph 59 and 73-74 St. John Paul II recognizes the responsibility of legislators and their moral duty to oppose abortion.
It just does not go as far as you want it to.
Even Cardinal Burke has never said that they are excommunicated or that they should be and he is a canon lawyer and a firm advocate of denying them communion.
Did Michelle O enjoy playing dress-up in that pic?
This is a link to a video conversation between Jeff Cavins and Fr. Mike Schmidt. It is Day 3 in the Catechism in a Year series.
Their talk on learning the Catechism is true of all learning of the Faith and of life.
Be patient. Just keep going. Things that don’t make sense now will make sense later.
No one understands everything in the Bible but keep reading it.
The Faith and the Catechism is an encounter with the living infinite Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. It is something you will spend your whole life learning.
It is a revelation from Almighty God.
I encourage all those who think they know the faith and who think they are faithful to continue working on it.
Some people here criticize Vatican II. If you have not read the documents-all of them, you need to. But you can start with reading the Catechism.
Start about 13 minute mark. “Prepare for your world, your understanding to expand.”
Since, apparently, YouTube has blocked this video, you can go to https://ascensionpress.com/pages/catechisminayear/ and find it.
Which catechism is Fr. Schmitz using, the John Paul II one or the Pope Francis one, Peggy?
There is no John Paul II catechism and no Pope Francis catechism.
There is the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2nd edition.
Ascension Press is selling an expensive version with some charts and colors.
You can see on its website what it looks like but I am sure the one you have is probably good (unless you have the first edition.)
I thought there were changes made to the catechism under Pope Francis,
If you click on the underlined Watch on YouTube in the black box above, it will take you there.
Ascension Press probably has blocked it from playing on other sites, which is OK.
I really don’t like that you can’t just post a link. This is the only website I have seen which does that.
I am unconditionally pro-life.
I do not approve of pro-choice politicians and I do not want to defend them.
I doubt any of them intends, desires or approves of abortion. They do allow it, which is the problem.
Ms Obama reciprocated by turning water into whine.
. . . then she offered to hear Benedict’s confession.