Round One: Chaput Condemns Obama

In my previous post, The Sleeping Giant Will Sleep No More!, I predicted that the Catholic Church in America has reached a crossroads this last election cycle, and will now be much more publicly forceful and vocal on the life issue.

With this understanding, I put my money, and my focus in the post, on Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput in regard to shaking things up the most, specifically the Obama Administration, writing:

"Knowing the Archbishop, his vocal amplification of the Gospel of Life will not stop on Inauguration Day... He will be as much as a nemesis of Barack Obama as he was when the DNC were putting up those "Styrofoam pillars" in the Archbishop’s backyard [for the Democratic Convention]. Obama greatly underestimates Chaput’s conviction and the Archbishop’s not caring whether or not he is ever invited to a Heads of State dinner. ... Chaput will be Obama’s ongoing nemesis."

So less than one month after the inauguration of President Obama, here comes Chaput:

"A leading Catholic archbishop is calling a fraud President Barack Obama's claims that he will lead efforts to reduce abortions. During a trip to Ireland, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver said merely wanting to reduce abortions as opposed to ending the practice entirely is not pro-life.

Chaput said Obama's recent move to send taxpayer dollars to other nations for pro-abortion groups to spend to promote and perform abortions violated his abortion reduction promise.

...“There's something a little odd about rhetoric that tells that we're the ‘divisive’ ones, and lectures adult citizens about what we should challenge, and when we should stop. In a democracy, we get to decide that for ourselves," he said.

“An issue that involves the life and death of unborn children and the subversion of entire traditional societies can't be ‘put behind us’ with an executive signature," Chaput added.

...“During the last U.S. election, we saw the emergence of so-called pro-life organizations that argued we should stop fighting the legal struggle over abortion. Instead we should join with ‘pro-choice’ supporters to seek ‘common ground,'" he explained.

“Their argument was simple: Why fight a losing battle on the legal, cultural and moral front since - according to them -- we haven't yet made serious progress in ending legalized abortion?" he continued. "Let's drop the ‘divisive’ political battle, they said, and instead let's all work together to tackle the economic and health issues that might eventually reduce abortions."

But Chaput said that argument wasn't acceptable for opponents of slavery, wasn't acceptable to opponents of racism and shouldn't be alright with pro-life advocates.

“Did Americans take a gradual, social-improvement road to ‘reducing’ racism? No. We passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” he said.

“Nor have I ever heard anyone suggest that the best way to deal with murder, rape or domestic abuse is to improve the availability of health care and job training. We make rape illegal -- even though we know it will still sometimes tragically occur -- because rape is gravely evil. It's an act of violence, and the law should proscribe it," he said.

“Of course, we also have a duty to improve the social conditions that can breed domestic and sexual violence. But that doesn't change the need for the law," Chaput added. “Likewise, if we really believe that abortion is an intimate act of violence, then we can't aim at anything less than ending abortion."

What makes these statements so remarkable, is that Chaput names names. Obama specifically, and other "in-name-only" pro-life organizations -- which you will see if you read the full piece at the above link. He could care less about outside pressure on not being specific on his condemnations. He could care less if someone threatens him with his tax-exempt status in an attempt to silence him. He is going to be a such major headache for Obama. Chaput truly does not care what anyone thinks of him, much less Obama, or if he offends powerful people. He is going to speak the unfiltered Gospel, period.

Moreover, an interesting observation I had about Chaput is that he routinely wears just his normal, black priest clothing and roman collar out in public, absolutely no designation (the amaranth red color) that he has achieved the title of Archbishop. This tells me that he does not care for titles, and Obama is going to find out just how much he does not care for titles.


"And because the homicides involved in abortion are 'little murders' -- the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives -- it’s easy to look the other way." - Archbishop Charles Chaput