OF PROSTITUTES, POLITICIANS AND PRIESTS !!!

A prostitute on the street sells her body. Maybe, if she is simply desperate for money and has little or no other recourse, she sells her body to stay alive while she yearning for a better life. Saint Mary Magdalene comes to mind. A prostitute in Congress does not sell his or her body, they do worse, they sell their soul. Perhaps they do that for money like the prostitute on the street, but it seems that many of the prostitutes in Congress sell their soul for power. The ambition to succeed in politics can trigger one of the driving forces of human nature, the desire for power, with spiritually fatal results. The example of Senator Tim Kaine, Senator from Virginia and now Hillary Clinton’s Vice-Presidential running mate is a perfect example of this second kind of prostitute.

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WHAT TIM KAINE TELLS US ABOUT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY:

THE FEDERALIST

28 JULY 16

There’s a lot to be said about what last night said about the Democratic Party and what it has learned from the past decade and a half of American political life. The speeches by President Obama and Vice President Biden were well-written and delivered better than the text. They presented less of a defense of their record than the case that Donald Trump is unqualified, by temperament and character, to sit in the Oval Office. Obama’s speech was, with a few exceptions, the sort of thing you are more used to hearing at a Republican convention than a Democratic one. The thread that runs through his remarks stands out as a critique that could have been easily offered by Ted Cruz or another conservative Trump critic. http://vlt.tc/2hm7 “This is a more fundamental choice – about who we are as a people, and whether we stay true to this great American experiment in self-government… [Trump is] betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election. That is another bet that Donald Trump will lose. Because he’s selling the American people short. We are not a fragile or frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order. We don’t look to be ruled.”

It was stirring stuff, albeit marked by a bit of underlying concern, nagging at the edges. We didn’t look to be ruled, once. Perhaps now things are different, and the people are different, too. Perhaps something about our politics, and the failure of our hopes for change, helped make it so.

The more interesting event of the evening, though, was the nomination of Tim Kaine as the Vice Presidential choice of the Democratic Party. His speech was the most boring of the night, launching a host of dad jokes and comparisons to Ned Flanders. http://vlt.tc/2hm8 The speech was partially awkward because of the cultural gap between the Catholic Kaine and a crowd that is more secular and progressive – when he praised his Marine son and said “Semper Fi”, the audience didn’t seem to get the reference. http://vlt.tc/2hm9 And that’s fitting – as a politician, Kaine represents better than perhaps any other prominent Democrat how great the cultural sort within the two parties has been in the past decade.

A little more than ten years ago, Tim Kaine was running for governor of Virginia. Here is an ad he ran at the time. http://vlt.tc/2hm0 “The truth is, I cut taxes as mayor of Richmond. I’ll enforce the death penalty as governor, and I’m against same-sex marriage. I’m conservative on personal responsibility, character, family and the sanctity of life. These are my values, and that’s what I believe.” In another ad he ran at the time, he detailed his support for parental consent laws, preventing any taxpayer funding for abortion, and banning partial-birth abortions – he even criticized his Republican opponent for failing to pass a version of such a ban that would withstand legal challenge, even starting the ad by saying he’s “not afraid to tell you where I stand”. http://vlt.tc/2hm5 His ad on “Values” sounds more like something run by a more fiscally conservative Mike Huckabee than any modern Democrat. http://vlt.tc/2hm4 His positions on abortion were viewed as so out of the Democratic mainstream at the time that NARAL declined to endorse him. http://vlt.tc/2hm2 In an interview in 2008, he reiterated his opposition to abortion and support for restrictions on it. http://vlt.tc/2hm1 And as governor, he continued to frustrate the pro-choice lobby – he backed state funding for crisis pregnancy centers and, in a particularly irritating move, signed the bill authorizing the state’s “Choose Life” license plates that crop up a lot outside of Northern Virginia. http://vlt.tc/2hm6

This was always going to prove a challenge for Kaine if he was going to rise up the ranks of power as a Democrat. So when he arrive in the Senate, he changed course, racking up a 100% voting record with NARAL and muting his opposition to abortion. He backed off any opposition besides expressing the occasional moral qualm, or being reluctant to defend Planned Parenthood. It still wasn’t enough, though – it took getting picked as the Vice Presidential nominee for Kaine to take the one last step away from his record, and endorsing taxpayer funding for abortions and the repeal of the Hyde Amendment. http://vlt.tc/2hlj “The senator is not personally for repeal of the Hyde Amendment,” a spokesman for the Clinton-Kaine campaign said Wednesday. He added: “But as he’s made clear, he is committed to carrying out Secretary Clinton’s agenda.”

The oddity here, of course, is that the Clinton agenda on abortion is far out of the mainstream of American positioning on the subject. Taxpayer funding for abortion is opposed by more than 60 percent of Americans, and more than 60 percent of Americans who identify as pro-choice would support restricting abortions to the first trimester. http://vlt.tc/2hgp For all the talk of a Republican war on women, it is women who are overwhelmingly in support of 20 week bans on abortion, even moreso than men. http://vlt.tc/2hma As of 2016, these figures don’t seem to matter to either party – but they illustrate how out of step those who favor taxpayer funded abortion on-demand up to the point of birth are with the country.

As Gracy Olmstead notes: http://vlt.tc/2hkr “The absence of any vibrant, winsome pro-life politician on our national stages over the past couple weeks reveals a stark disconnect between the interests of national politicians and the passions and principles of their base.” That disconnect is not an accident. It is driven by active interest groups who have shifted the Democratic Party ever leftward on this issue, and made it impossible for someone like Tim Kaine to rise through the ranks while being honest about what he believes is morally right.

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Tim Kaine gets a standing ovation at his parish

RICHMOND, Virginia, July 26, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Pro-abortion Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine received a standing ovation at his parish on Sunday and several Catholic priests praised his nomination.

Meanwhile, as Catholics call for Kaine to be denied Communion in accord with the Church’s laws, his bishop in the Diocese of Richmond has issued a statement saying that Catholics have a duty to determine their own worthiness “through an upright and informed conscience.”

Kaine and his wife were “like every other married couple going to church on a Sunday morning — if every other couple were met by reporters, people craning for a better look and a picture, and a standing ovation,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Kaine and his wife went to Mass at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Highland Park, Virginia, a parish in the Diocese of Richmond. Kaine reportedly sang in the choir and performed a solo.

“He’s in the choir, and he’s a tenor. He hasn’t been able to sing as much since he’s been a United States senator,” Father Jim Arsenault, the priest at St. Elizabeth, told NPR. “But every once in a while, our choir director Kim Ford will nab him and say, Tim, we need your voice. And he is very grateful to help out.”

Arsenault told NPR that he thought the issues most important to Kaine were women’s pay and “social justice issues.” He said that he could reconcile Kaine’s label of himself as “personally pro-life” despite the fact that as governor of Virginia, Kaine oversaw several executions.

“I know that he’s definitely against capital punishment and works to help defend those who are on death row,” said Arsenault. “The church has a teaching with regard to we’re pro-life, and we believe in that seamless garment of life. We respect sometimes lawmakers make difficult decisions.”

As governor of Virginia, Kaine opposed partial-birth abortion and even authorized the state’s “Choose Life” license plate option, but throughout his political career Kaine has separated his “personally pro-life” views from the public policy for which he advocates. Since becoming a United States senator, Kaine has shifted farther to the left on abortion. He has a perfect pro-abortion record in the Senate and supports Planned Parenthood. Kaine is also a co-sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that would undermine pro-life laws across the country.

In 2004, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, wrote: “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.” The Catechism adds: “The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation” (CCC 2270, CCC 2273). The Catholic Church also teaches that abortion is “gravely contrary to the moral law” (CCC 2271).

Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law instructs that those “persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

LifeSiteNews spoke with Arsenault, but he referred a request for comment to the Diocese of Richmond.

Deborah Cox, Director of Communications of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, referred LifeSiteNews to a July 22, 2016 statement from Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo on Catholics in public office:

The Catholic Church makes its position very clear as it pertains to the protection of human life, social justice initiatives, and the importance of family life. From the very beginning, Catholic teaching informs us that every human life is sacred from conception until natural death. The right to life is a fundamental, human right for the unborn and any law denying the unborn the right to life is unequivocally unjust.

Legislative issues pertaining to these matters are advocated on behalf of myself and Bishop Loverde, of the Diocese of Arlington, before the Virginia General Assembly, U.S. Congress, and with state and federal agencies and administrations through the Virginia Catholic Conference, a public policy advocacy organization. Through this organization, elected officials in Virginia are aware of the Church’s positions on such important issues.

We continue to maintain an open communication with public officials who make on-going decisions impacting critical, moral and social issues. This is a responsibility I take seriously, along with my brother bishops, to reach out to public leaders to explain Catholic principles and encourage them to protect human life and dignity in all decisions they make.

We always pray for our Catholic leaders that they make the right choice, act in the best judgment and in good conscience, knowing the values and teachings of the Catholic Church.

It is the duty of all Catholics, no matter their profession, to decide through an upright and informed conscience as to their worthiness to receive the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
Jesuits tout Kaine’s ‘service to others’ despite support for abortion on demand

In addition to trumpeting the role he says his faith plays in his life, Kaine frequently brings up his Catholic education.

The Jesuit high school from which Kaine graduated, Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Missouri, tweeted their congratulations. The tweet described Kaine as a “true believer in service and a ‘man for others,’” a reference to the school’s motto.

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