My Dear Friends,

This Wednesday, October 22nd, we will be celebrating the feast day of Pope St. John Paul II. There really is not much I can say about him that most of you are not familiar with already. He was pope from October 1978 to April 2005. And he was the first non-Italian pope since the early 1500's when he was elected. There is a belief that he was planning on taking the name of Stanislaus if he had been elected in the conclave weeks earlier. But after the election and then death of Blessed Pope John Paul I, john Paul II decided to honor him by taking his name.

John Paul I too as his name the first names of the two previous popes, Pope St. John XXIII Pope St. Paul VI, and he was also the first pope to have two names in his papal name. Pope John Paul II wrote extensively, as well as traveled extensively. One of his most important works, and one that should be retrieved by many of the cardinals and bishops as well as the current Holy Father, is Veritatis Splendor, (The Splendor of Truth) his encyclical on morality and moral absolutes. At the time of his encyclical, many theologians and bishops were proponents of proportionalism, which basically said that there are no moral absolutes.

During the last pontificate, many of these teachings were making their way back into Catholic teachings and moral norms. One such way is the seamless garment that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin created in the 1980's as a way to give cover to Governor Mario Cuomo, who famously said, "I am personally opposed to abortion but ... ". This argument has since been used effectively since, because certain cardinals and even popes have argued that you cannot be truly pro-life (a single issue voter when it comes to abortion) unless you also care for the poor, the children, the elderly, the migrant, and unless you oppose the death penalty.

John Paul II and Benedict XVI were popes that cared for all of these things, but they also stressed that the most important issue is the issue of abortion. These other issues are left for prudential judgment on how best to take care of the poor, elderly, children and migrant. They were both opposed to the death penalty as well, but they recognized that official church teaching throughout 2,000 years has never said that it was inherently immoral, whereas abortion is inherently immoral.

Just to show the massive discrepancy when it comes to abortion and executions, since 1973 when abortion was made legal under Roe v. Wade, there are been over 60,000,000 abortions in the United States. During that same time frame, there have been 1,631 executions in the United States. Yes, our politicians should work on eradicating the use of the death penalty, but let us not deceive ourselves when a politician is against the death penalty but also legislates for unlimited abortion up to the moment of birth.

Putting an anti-abortion/pro death penalty politician on the same moral playing field as the above mentioned politician is disingenuous and a means to make these issues into ideological issues. There really is no comparison when it comes to abortions and executions to see which is the pre-eminent issue when it comes to life issues and the so-called seamless garment.

God bless!

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