Tea at Trianon: The Biden Platform: What Catholics Should Know

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, August 22, 2020

The Biden Platform: What Catholics Should Know

Biden sold his soul long ago. From the Catholic News Agency:

The DNC platform also calls for the U.S. to appoint “senior leaders” to drive LGBTQ advocacy in foreign policy; the Obama administration appointed the first Special Envoy for LGBTQ issues at the State Department, but the position is not yet required by law to be filled by each administration and has not been filled during Trump’s presidency.

The current 2020 DNC platform also supports the HHS contraceptive mandate, which business owners and religious non-profits have fought in court over its requirement that employers cover contraceptives in employee health plans.

While the Trump administration granted religious and moral exemptions to the mandate, including for the Little Sisters of the Poor, states challenged the exemptions in court. In July, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the exemptions for the sisters and others.

However, Biden—who in an Aug. 9 campaign video credited the “generosity” of Catholic nuns with inspiring him in his run for president—has said that he would undo the religious and moral exemptions to the mandate, potentially opening the Little Sisters of the Poor up to further litigation for opposing the mandate.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, Biden said he would restore the Obama administration’s “accommodation” for objecting non-profits, which the sisters had challenged in court by saying it did not sufficiently protect their rights of conscience.

Under that “accommodation,” objecting non-profits would notify the government of their objection, which in turn would instruct their insurer or third-party plan administrator to ensure the provision of contraceptive coverage. The sisters said that by notifying the government of their objection, they were still essentially giving a “permission slip” for the provision of morally-objectionable coverage in their health plan.

The platform does include a commitment to oppose capital punishment, and pledges the party to “continue to support abolishing the death penalty.”

The DNC draft platform also opposes private school vouchers as part of “policies that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from the public school system.” In some states, like Wisconsin, Catholic schools have been some of the beneficiaries of the state’s expansion of private school vouchers.

On marriage, Biden supported the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s, but in 2012 said he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage; his comments as vice president in an election year prodded President Obama to announce his support for same-sex marriage days later. As Vice President, Biden himself officiated at a same-sex wedding ceremony for two White House staffers in 2016.

Regarding abortion, the 2020 DNC platform builds upon the 2016 platform that one former Obama campaign staffer characterized was “extreme.” In 2016, Michael Wear, director of faith outreach for Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, told CNA that the party’s abortion stance was “morally reprehensible. (Read more.)

From LifeSite:

Let’s take a look at Biden’s record on life and family — the two top issues for Catholics in political life, as was explained by Pope Benedict XVI while he was still Cardinal Ratzinger under Pope St. John Paul II. Biden has been upfront about his agenda to ensure the so-called “right” to what he calls women’s reproductive health, by which he means permission to kill babies in the womb. In his Agenda for Women, released in July, Biden promised to restore domestic and overseas funding to the abortion industry cut by Trump. Biden said he “will work to codify Roe v. Wade, and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate Roe v. Wade.”
The largest abortion operation in the USA, Planned Parenthood, has naturally endorsed Biden. In its statement, PP touted the former vice president’s support for expanding access to contraception, increasing legal protections for access to abortion, promoting “comprehensive sex education,” and reversing the Trump administration’s rule prohibiting Title X taxpayer funds from being given to organizations that refer for abortions. Prior to the announcement being made, Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president of Planned Parenthood, told NPR that November’s presidential contest “is literally a life and death election.”

During the coronavirus crisis — where all sorts of medical procedures were suspended due to the pandemic — Biden wanted to ensure the continuation of abortion. “We need to ensure that women have access to all health services during this crisis,” the Democratic presidential candidate said, adding that “abortion is an essential health care service.”

Historically, Biden had a slight qualm with forcing Americans to pay for aborting children abroad, but during the campaign, he flip-flopped on the Hyde Amendment. “If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” Biden declared. “I can’t justify leaving millions of women without the access to care they need, and the ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right.” (Read more.)

From EWTN:

Conscience is NOT the same as your opinions or feelings. Conscience cannot be identical with your feelings because conscience is the activity of your intellect in judging the rightness or wrongness of your actions or omissions, past, present, or future, while your feelings come from another part of your soul and should be governed by your intellect and will. Conscience is not identical with your opinions because your intellect bases its judgment upon the natural moral law, which is inherent in your human nature and is identical with the Ten Commandments. Unlike the civil laws made by legislators, or the opinions that you hold, the natural moral law is not anything that you invent, but rather discover within yourself and is the governing norm of your conscience. In short, Conscience is the voice of truth within you, and your opinions need to be in harmony with that truth. As a Catholic, you have the benefit of the Church’s teaching authority or Magisterium endowed upon her by Christ. The Magisterium assists you and all people of good will in understanding the natural moral law as it relates to specific issues. As a Catholic, you have the obligation to be correctly informed and normed by the teaching of the Church’s Magisterium. As for your feelings, they need to be educated by virtue so as to be in harmony with conscience’s voice of truth. In this way, you will have a sound conscience, according to which we you will feel guilty when you are guilty, and feel morally upright when you are morally upright. We should strive to avoid the two opposite extremes of a lax conscience and a scrupulous conscience. Meeting the obligation of continually attending to this formation of conscience will increase the likelihood that, in the actual operation or activity of conscience, you will act with a certain conscience, which clearly perceives that a given concrete action is a good action that was rightly done or should be done. Being correctly informed and certain in the actual operation of conscience is the goal of the continuing formation of conscience. Otherwise put, you should strive to avoid being incorrectly informed and doubtful in the actual judgment of conscience about a particular action or omission. You should never act on a doubtful conscience. (Read more.)