…Well, I’m not. But let’s pretend for a second that I am. If I said to you, “As a Catholic woman…” and I asked you to fill in the sentence, what would you say?
Here’s the quote from Caroline Kennedy’s speech at the Democrat National Convention ce soir:
As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously, and today, it is under attack. This year alone, more than a dozen states have passed more than 40 restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health care. That’s not the kind of future I want for my daughters or your daughters.
Last I checked, the Catholic church was under attack for holding the line on sexual mores. Last I checked, Pope John Paul’s encyclical was not called “In defence of reproductive freedom.” If you did the most cursory of polls on city streets and asked people whether Catholics can support abortion, I’m guessing most would know the answer: No.
It is sad to me, besides being such hogwash, that she insists on bringing her Catholicism into such an insulting, twisted misinterpretation of what her faith teaches. This is particularly true since even as a Protestant I can see the freedom and beauty of teachings on sexuality in the Catholic church, for those who bother looking into them.
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I can understand someone not agreeing with every doctrine held by the denomination to which they choose to belong; it may be that no set of communal beliefs will perfectly match an individual person, hence the continuing fragmentation of the Christian religion. That said, some tenets are more fundamental than others, and the sanctity of life is an inviolate pillar of the Christian Faith. At the very least, her Catholicism should not have been invoked at a moment where she was clearly deviating from its formal dogma, as though it validated her viewpoint (“even the CATHOLICS are on board with abortion, now!”). At least, as a Catholic woman, that is my impression.
“As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously, and today, it is under attack.” Too true. And here’s why:
The virtue of chastity is under attack.
The sanctity of marriage (and lifelong exclusive spousal/sexual fidelity) is under attack.
The sanctity of human life is under attack.
Family life is under attack.
The natural, normal, cyclical nature of women’s fertility is under attack (hint: it is not a disease in need of ‘fixing’)
Modesty, self-respect, common sense, decency and good taste are under attack (protestors wearing costumes that resemble female genitalia–really?)
I am also a Catholic woman. But, I take exception when I express my pro-life views, and someone inevitably says “Oh, it is because she is Catholic.” And, for some strange reason, that makes it ok. Well, it is not because I am a Catholic that I am pro-life. I am pro-life because I am a rational human being who values life and promotes the notion of human dignity in a culture where everything is disposible.