Carol Marin's Catholicism -- and, yes, I went to school with Alexi Giannoulias

By Matt C. Abbott

A reader wrote (edited):

'I read this article [by Catholic commentator and political analyst Tom Roeser] and became curious about some details — not so much about Obama and [Chicago Sun-Times columnist and journalist] Carol Marin, but the Cardinal Bernardin issues. I came across your posts in various places, and you confirmed everything Tom said about Bernardin. Needless to say, I've been asleep. I thought Malachi Martin's book was strictly fictional. The revelations are overwhelming.

'Our family moved to Illinois in 1985 and I was unaware of the Pellegrini affair. Although my daughters graduated in the 1990s from Nazareth Academy and Benet Academy, I flipped out above the sex-ed homoagenda course at Nazareth and the 'social justice' movement at Benet. I restrained myself from speaking out, thinking it's just an aberration.

'Anyway, the bottom line is I left the Catholic Church and went back to my default religion of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. (LCMS excommunicated George Tiller over 20 years ago for his work in abortion; he moved to the ELCA.)

'I think we're looking at the 'Great Apostasy' written about in Jude, Thessalonians and Revelation. I don't think there is any safe place for observant, discreet followers of Christ. The church is under attack all over the place — not just Catholics. I grieved when Alan Keyes and Father Norman Weslin were arrested at Notre Dame.

'I enjoy your writing and applaud your work. God bless you, and thank you for the information and for your time.'

Tom Roeser's recent commentary, to which the reader refers, is, as usual, a good one. He writes (excerpted; click here for the full column):

'...The spirit of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin? You mean the one who devised the 'Consistent life ethic' which my old Minnesota colleague Walter Mondale gleefully told me when we met at the Madison Hotel in Washington during the 1984 campaign resulted in Mondale's compiling, in Mondale's words 'a better pro-life record than Ronald Reagan' for nuclear freeze, against the death penalty? Mondale chortled that Bernardin's devising this stratagem was truly 'Italianate,' meaning he saw how to help his pro-abort party transcend problems with Catholic pro-life voters.

'[President Obama and Cardinal Bernardin] had no difference substantially on abortion. Their difference on abortion was cosmetic. Bernardin, whom I knew and met with on the issue, was a liberal Democratic manipulator who worked strenuously to water down the effect of abortion on the Catholic electorate to assist his party. He was technically 'pro-life' with tongue deeply stuck in his cheek because he wanted the red hat. Obama, whom I interviewed several times and discussed abortion with, is not at all as complaisant as was Bernardin on the issue. Obama has never, ever sought common ground on abortion. The idea that by passing universal health care people will not resort to abortion, which is Doug Kmiec's ridiculous proposition, is non-substantive and of appeal only to the ideological Left like Marin. Were he to have extended an olive branch he would not have vitiated the Mexico City rule, thereby softening his approach slightly. Marin is fiction-spinning again....'

While Cardinal Bernardin did, on at least one occasion, indicate that abortion should be top on the list of "life issues," it's evident that pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians, and even some pro-abortion non-Catholic politicians, have an unsettling affection for the late cardinal. Thus, I tend to agree with Tom on said matter.

On a somewhat related note...

One politician who's been in the news in recent times — well, at least Illinois news — is Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a friend of President Obama who's eyeing higher office — the U.S. Senate.

I went to elementary school with the bright and athletic Alexi (fourth through eighth grades, to be exact) and, in a sense, one could say he was "destined" for politics, considering his late father was a politically-connected and well-to-do Democrat. I haven't spoken to Alexi since graduating from elementary school 19 years ago — my mother happened to run into him several months ago and said he was quite gracious — but I did not vote for him, nor will I vote for him in the future, due to his pro-abortion stance (of course, he says he's "pro-choice," but we know that if you're "pro-choice," you're pro-abortion).

© Matt C. Abbott