News

The Brew: Pope Leo Smothers Pro-Lifers in the ‘Seamless Garment.’

Comments Off on The Brew: Pope Leo Smothers Pro-Lifers in the ‘Seamless Garment.’ 22

Well, the mystery man has taken off his disguise. Like traumatized children who hope that their mama’s new boyfriend won’t beat them as much as the last one, Catholics greeted the new man called “Il Papa” with hope. And indeed Leo XIV is a big improvement in some ways over Pope Francis. Leo doesn’t seem to be a sociopath, and is probably even a theist.

But as we reported yesterday, Leo’s latest public statement has given away that he embraces one of the most detestable heresies in Church history since Marcion rejected the Old Testament: the “Seamless Garment” invented by Machiavellian Leftist Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. (That’s the bishop who personally wrote the check to send Barack Obama to study at a Saul Alinsky “community organizing” institute.)

Responding to the outrage of faithful, pro-life Catholics (including some faithful bishops) that the newest far-Left cardinal in Leo’s home town, Chicago, Blaise Cupich, was honoring partial birth abortion advocate Sen. Dick Durbin with a lifetime achievement award, Leo said (in a dig at MAGA Catholics):

Someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life. Someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro life.

This is the Seamless Garment, uncut and pure, in shrink-wrapped kilos ready for sale on the streets to addicts. I laid out yesterday how it’s inconsistent with historic Christian doctrine, and previous official Catholic teaching. Let me just reiterate why it’s incoherent and false, drawing on something I published here way back in 2016, “The Seamless Garment: A Poison Pill to Kill Off the Pro-Life Movement.” A poison pill

is something which you ask for, and pretend to desperately want, which is designed to throw your opponent off, make him back off on his other demands — to do whatever he needs to in order to avoid having to swallow that poison pill.

Seamless Garment advocates such as Cardinal Bernardin, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi pretend that you can’t oppose killing children for our sexual convenience, unless you also think it was wrong to hang the Nazi war criminals after Nuremburg, and it’s wrong to deport illegal aliens. Who on this green earth actually believes all these claims at once? Virtually nobody. According to the Christian Post, this stance is held by less than 1% of Catholics surveyed — a number so small it vanishes into the margin of error.

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

That doesn’t trouble me. It reassures me, because the Seamless Garment is toxic nonsense, as my 2016 piece explains:

That theological project lumped together the intentional killing of more than a million unborn babies a year with every other phenomenon that might conceivably shorten some humans’ lives, from poor child nutrition to smog, from NATO missiles to Reagan’s aid to the anti-Communist contras. In essence, they said, if you aren’t a pacifist who favors absolutely unlimited welfare programs, open borders, and police using only rubber bullets, you cannot oppose abortion.

Those who take this stance can pretend that they really oppose abortion, but are too intellectually rigorous to become “single issue” voters. In fact what they are doing is saddling the pro-life movement with a deadly poison pill: Either embrace our outrageous, implausible, and likely suicidal utopianism, or let us go on murdering a million children per year.

And in a sense the strategy worked. Almost no sincere pro-lifers were willing to adopt all the crackpot items on this Christmas wishlist, but its very existence gives crucial political cover to the likes of Joe Biden, Tim Kaine and Nancy Pelosi. The so-called “consistent” pro-life position, they suggest, is such a rigorous and demanding, unworldly agenda, that you can’t blame them for falling short on one or two items of the full glory of God. As Democrats, they can’t surrender abortion, but hey, look how much better they are than Republicans at federal grants for transgender illegal aliens!

The pope’s latest statement is an absolute, unmitigated disgrace, which every Christian should treat with the scorn it deserves. Even Dick Durbin seems to have more shame than Leo; to quench the controversy, he coquettishly declined the honor Cardinal Cupich offered him. But the damage to the credibility of the Catholic pro-life position (and authority structure) is done.

Well played, Screwtape, well played.

But at least the pope is conducting rituals to promote “climate justice”:

FBI Cuts Ties to Far-Left Anti-Defamation League

Who could oppose an “Anti-Defamation League,” except fans of defamation? But once you look past the clever branding, you see that the ADL is a far-left organization that labels organizations such as Turning Point USA as “extremist” or “hate” groups, effectively painting a target on them for government harassment or freelance violence. So kudos to Kash Patel for terminating the cozy, corrupt arrangement which Joe Biden’s FBI maintained with the ADL:

Hillary Clinton Conspired with Eurocrats to Crush Free Speech in America

Speaking of corrupt collusion between the private sector and the government to silence dissent, legal scholar Jonathan Turley reports on Hillary Clinton’s attempt to use the powers of the European Union to reimpose censorship on social media in America — threatening Elon Musk with billion-dollar fines if he wouldn’t comply.

GOP Congressman Seeks to End Child Mutilation on Taxpayer Dime

God bless Missouri Rep. Bob Onder. He wrote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent requesting that he make a small legal change in IRS regulations that could save thousands of children from quack psychologists and surgeons:

Pray that Secretary Bessent listens. Because with all the little ones stumbling, the millstones are piling up all across our country. (Matt. 18:6)

An Encouraging Thought

A fine essay over at Gateway Pundit suggests why the Trump administration is so much committed to reason than previous White House teams — because it’s more infused by faith. Antonio Graceffo writes:

The Trump administration is arguably the most openly Christian and pro-religious administration since the era of the founding fathers….

Trump has restored protections for Christians, especially Catholics who faced persecution under the Biden administration. He has also enacted policies that strengthen the Christian values on which the nation was founded. Furthermore, his administration includes an unprecedented number of openly practicing Christians at the highest levels of government, making faith a defining feature of national leadership.

Go read the whole thing. It will brighten your day, and nudge you to offer a prayer of gratitude. May God guide Caesar to wield his sword wisely and justly.

Along The Stream

Don’t miss this uplifting video, where Peter Demos sit down with author and speaker Natasha Crain to explore how believers can stand firm in an increasingly secular and hostile world.

Later this morning, read how the Left caused a wave of church burnings in Canada with a manufactured scandal promoted by its anti-Christian government.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.

The post The Brew: Pope Leo Smothers Pro-Lifers in the ‘Seamless Garment.’ appeared first on The Stream.

Previous ArticleNext Article