There are lots of ways to influence a person. Honest influence uses argument and reason, debate and intellect. Dishonest methods use coercion and threat, manipulation and blackmail.
Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is a dishonest man. Rather than having the weight of evidence and argument, he resorts to emotional extortion and threats of damnation.
Congressman Patrick Kennedy, of Rhode Island (not really an island, if you didn't know) had the audacity and the unmitigated gall to stand up for his principles in defiance of a group that considers itself the ultimate authority on all things: the Catholic Church! You see, the Catholic Church doesn't like abortions, and quite frankly I can't blame them. It doesn't matter how you view it, it's not a "Good Thing". You don't buy one as a gift, and you don't wish one on anyone. So if someone happens to not LIKE the idea of abortion, I don't think they are crazy or silly or simple.
BUT... (you knew there was going to be a "BUT", didn't you?)
But, it's a sad fact that they can be necessary. It's make us all very uncomfortable when a situation arises that pits life against life, and that uncomfortable feeling is our sense of morality looking for a better solution, pushing us to find the best outcome, even when none is possible.
When none is possible, how can you choose? We can bemoan the innocent fetal tissue that had the misfortune to be conceived in an irresponsible teenager, but what of the victims of rape? What of the woman who will die in childbirth, or the parent who's offspring is so mis-fortunate that it cannot possible live after it's birth? What of the girl who was raped too young to have a period, and is now an pre-teen expectant mother? Not only do these situation occur, they occur often.
The Catholic Church is unconcerned with such real lives. In Brazil, all forms of abortion, for all reasons, are illegal and it has been called the "perfect Catholic state" for just that reason. It is doctrine that any Catholic who, in any way, assists in an abortion is excommunicated, while child rapist (both within and without it's clergy ranks) are offered confession and absolution.
Congressman Kennedy finds it acceptable that a completely legal, and often necessary, medical procedure should be covered under a government medical plan. Bishop Tobin disagrees, and since the Congressman is a practicing Catholic, the Bishop sought to influence him through his faith. If there was ever a more un-American act, I would like to know about it? (Really, I want to be sure of these things.)
No one has a soul than can be sent to hell. There was no supernatural Jesus saving us from his father's blunders, and so no need to eat silly, tasteless crackers (not without cheese, anyway). This doesn't change the fact that religious men are oozing their way toward politics once again.
I confer upon both the Bishop and the Congressman the rite of Debaptism. May you both be free men from this day forth!
-- Reverend Thomas Wubby Debaptist Church, Founder
