Dear San Diego Catholics (and Others)…

Bishop McElroy 'is a liar, ... a narcissist, and ... a duplicitous scumbag'. OMM's words, not mine, tho' I agree. He obviously has totally lost the Faith.

From One Mad Mom

Your Bishop McElroy thinks you are stupid. He thinks you’re low information voters who simply go, “Oh, OK, he said it, I must believe it.” He is a liar, he is a narcissist, and he is a duplicitous scumbag. But, that’s just me. Sounds like harsh ad hominems but I can back up every last one.

Bishop laments questioning of Biden’s faith due to abortion policies

Oct 13, 2020

by Christopher White

As President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden vie for the Catholic vote, Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego pushed back against those questioning Biden’s personal Catholic faith based on his positions on abortion rights. McElroy said that when it comes to questions of public policy, abortion legislation is a matter of prudential judgment.

“One very sad dimension of the election cycle we are witnessing,” said McElroy, is “the public denial of candidates’ identity as Catholics because of a specific policy position they have taken. Such denials are injurious because they reduce Catholic social teaching to a single issue. But they are offensive because they constitute an assault on the meaning of what it is to be Catholic.”

Actually, one sad dimension of this election cycle is you and your weaselly ilk. There’s no public denial of Joe “identifying” as Catholic. He’s baptized. What he is, is a heretic. That’s what you become when you preside over a same-sex “wedding.” Before that, we might have called him a hideous, bad, conniving, etc., Catholic. Oh, and please stop with the “single issue” canard. Talk about denials. That’s offensive and an outright lie.

You’re the one who got up and stomped your feet about the use of “preeminent”, and your brother bishops tried to explain the definition to you, since it is clearly lost on you. Actually, I don’t think it’s lost on you at all. I think you just obfuscate as much as you possibly can.

“In recent months, there has been a barrage of efforts to question the sincerity of Biden’s Catholic faith, including one U.S. Catholic bishop endorsing a viral video by a priest saying faithful Catholics can’t support Democratic candidates.”

Uh, as if any of us had to make an effort to question the sincerity of Biden’s faith. He does that with his actions. Let me repeat: he “married” two men in his backyard. He has argued endlessly for abortion. His administration prosecuted sisters who take care of the elderly. He lies like a dog and, by the way, he busted up Jill’s marriage and then married her. We didn’t do that. He did. Are you going to say that this is in keeping with the Catholic faith? Oh, please, do answer that question, Bishop McElroy!

“Being Catholic means having a grace-filled relationship with God. Being Catholic means loving the Church. Being Catholic means participating in the sacramental life of the church. Being a Catholic means trying to transform the world by the light of the Gospel,” McElroy continued. “To reduce that magnificent, multidimensional gift of God’s love to a single question of public policy is repugnant and should have no place in public discourse.”

Being Catholic means being baptized. Being a FAITHFUL Catholic is a whole other ballgame. I realize you like to blur the line between two, but being a faithful Catholic means embracing ALL of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Does that mean perfection. Nope. It means striving for it and not rejecting the Church teachings that are hard for you. You can’t have a grace-filled, sacramental life or transform anything when you’re embracing sin. And I don’t mean giving it a glance once in a while. I mean embracing it like it’s your long-lost friend. Well, I guess you can transform oneself into the model of Biden, but that would be kinda evil.

McElroy’s remarks came during an Oct. 13 virtual discussion on “Voting as an Authentic Disciple,” sponsored by the Campus Ministry, the Center for Spirituality and the Office for Civic and Social Engagement of St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, and by the University of Notre Dame’s Campus Ministry.

I’m shocked – shocked, I tell you – that Notre Dame would ever allow such a dissenter to do anything on campus. (I almost said that with a straight face!)

“The California bishop’s talk echoed many of the themes he explored in a February 2020 essay published by NCR, in which he argued that Catholics should remember that “in the end, it is the candidate who is on the ballot, not a specific issue.”

Oh, another shocker. Bishop McElroy quotes hismself.

On the question of abortion, he said that because Catholicism teaches that some actions, including abortion, are “intrinsically evil,” meaning that they are “always and everywhere wrong,” some church leaders have claimed that “candidates who seek laws opposing intrinsically evil actions automatically have a primary claim to political support in the Catholic conscience.

McElroy rejected that claim, telling attendees that “the framing of legislation is inescapably the realm of prudential judgment, not intrinsic evil.”

“While a specific act of abortion is intrinsically evil, the formulation of individual laws regarding abortion is not,” he said.

Oh, I am going to parse the @#$%& out of this.

What in the what?!?!?! This is an outright lie and very unbecoming of a Catholic bishop. Pope Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, covered this in Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion, when McCarrick asked him about this particular issue. Bishop McElroy knows this. He just prefers you do not. (emphasis mine): 

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=6041
5. Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

Framing legislation to allow killing of children in the womb is NEVER a prudential judgment. Biden is not trying to minimize abortion in what we like to call an incremental move. That’s a move to save the most lives you can save at a time. The “Pain Capable Act” would be an example. The “Partial Birth Abortion Ban” is another. It’s taking things that are disgusting to most and acting on them to, in reality, grab the kids from the clutches of death we can at the time. Biden is in the tank for abortion and has said he would do anything to keep Roe v. Wade as the “law of the land.” Remember, his administration wanted to make an example of the Little Sisters of the Poor by making them complicit with abortion. Oh, and let’s see who last rescinded the Mexico City Policy. Oh, that would be the Obama/Biden administration. The only thing worthwhile Biden ever did in his sorry tenure in any office was to vote for the Partial Birth Abortion ban, but then he turned around and said he was against the ban. So, please. Biden has made NON-prudential judgment after NON-prudential judgment when it comes to abortion, and it’s clear that he will be for the killing of as many children as needed for him to win an election. Bishop McElroy is disgusting. Using Catholic lingo and using a mischaracterization of it are two very different things. One is a lie and I hope he turns up in the confessional soon.

“It is an imperative of conscience for Catholic disciples to seek legal protections for the unborn. But whether these protections take the form of sanctioning the doctor or the pregnant mother, whether those sanctions should be civil or criminal penalties,”

Stop right there. Now you’re simply muddling, as always, Bishop McElroy. We’re talking about laws sanctioning abortion, but now you’re talking about laws that might come up AFTER abortion is outlawed. Why? Probably because you never want us to get that far. It’s kind of sick.

“and the volatile issues pertaining to outlawing abortions arising from rape, incest and danger to the mother are all questions of deep disagreement among advocates wholeheartedly devoted to the protection of unborn children.”

This is not a “volatile issue” when it comes to the Catholic Church. Repeat after me: “Human life is sacred from conception to natural death. Human life is sacred from conception to natural death. Human life is sacred from conception to natural death.” You’re not “wholeheartedly” devoted to the protection of the unborn if you think you can murder them based on how their conception occurred. This is Catholic teaching. To say that this isn’t the teaching of the Catholic Church would kind of fall under heresy, no? You’re intimating that a sacred life is somehow not a sacred life.

And the icing on the cake of this abominable blathering?

“Like the issues of fighting poverty and addressing climate change, the issue of abortion in law and public policy is a realm where prudential judgment is essential and determinative.”

No. No. No. And no! Passing a law or engaging in actions promoting abortion (which Biden has done many times) is not a prudential judgment EVER! Not in public policy or in society. As the Church says, it’s an intrinsic evil. She does not say that about the fight against poverty or “climate change”, where prudential judgments are the name of the game. Again, you are comparing apples to oranges in an attempt to keep people from the truth. It’s still disgusting.

In surveying the political landscape and issues facing Catholics in this election, McElroy identified three major areas that he says have galvanized voters of faith: abortion, climate change and racial justice.

Oh, because that’s soooooo important. “Let’s survey the political landscape.” How about we not? I don’t event want a survey of Catholic in the pews, since the results of the last survey on the belief in the Real Presence were abysmal. If they don’t believe that, why would we care what they think is important. The non-negotiables are abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning and same-sex marriage. After that, you can look at all the other prudential judgments out there. We don’t get to quibble on these things. You either vote for a candidate who has a stellar position or, at worst, the one who is the lesser of the evils. You can quibble on third party if you want. What you can’t do is vote for the worst of the evils in this area, and, as so many priests and bishops are now saying, that’s Joe Biden. Duh.

On abortion, he said there used to be widespread bipartisan support for eliminating the number of abortions that take place each year but that “commitment has been eviscerated in the Democratic Party in a capitulation to notions of privacy that simply block out the human identity and rights of unborn children.”

Baloney. There were the conservatives who wanted to defund and incrementally get rid of abortions, and there were liberals who wanted to replace abortion with birth control and chemical abortions (if they even wanted that since body parts are so lucrative), which they don’t have to count if they give them OTC abortion pills. Really, people. When you hear “reduce abortions”, you have to ask what that means, because usually it’s not really true.

On climate change, he said, “The United States, which was once a leader in this effort, has now become the leader in resisting efforts to combat climate change and in denying its existence.”

Completely irrelevant to the conversation and he knows it. It’s about the KILLING OF CHILDREN!

When it comes to racial justice, he said, “The systemic victimization of African Americans and Hispanics by our criminal justice system has been crystalized in the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.”

Why does McElroy only seem to care about the killing of blacks when it’s done by police (even more rarely without cause), but he doesn’t even seem to notice the 317 black children killed this year? 317. I’ll tell you why. Because it’s not the cause célèbre that will make him a favorite among liberals.

“Given the moral urgency of all of these issues, he concluded that faithful Catholics are “automatically homeless in our political world” and that “there is no single issue which in Catholic teaching constitutes a magic bullet that determines a unitary option for faith-filled voting in 2020.”

Faithful Catholics are not homeless, we have a home in the Church. You? You may have a problem with that. You are actually a minority in the USCCB, which is why you pitched a fit when this topic came up.

McElroy encouraged all Catholics to approach the ballot box with a thorough examination of their consciences, prayer and commitment to fully advancing the Gospel, and said that it is “morally legitimate” for Catholics to come to different conclusions as to for whom to cast their vote.

How about an examination of Church teaching on the issue? I guess that would be too much to ask.

In concluding his lecture, McElroy looked to Pope Francis’ recently released encyclical Fratelli Tutti, saying that the pope’s emphasis on social friendship provides a blueprint for healing the likely scars of this presidential election, particularly through the pope’s spotlighting of the virtues of compassion, solidarity and dialogue.

There is no healing anything with unfaithful Catholics like you running around out there.

Compassion, McElroy said, provides a starting point, as the current political culture “calls us to build walls around our compassion that correspond to our class and party,” choosing between the unborn child or the child separated at the border, or between those victimized by racism or those victimized by street violence.

Honestly, this is getting beyond ridiculous. There is no choosing between any of this. There’s prioritizing those under direct attack against life first. Not a threat of attack, direct attack. Of the list provided, that is the unborn child who WILL die from abortion.

“We as people of faith must demonstrate how our nation can be rebuilt by citizens who identify with the vulnerability of others precisely by refusing to channel our compassion and compassionate action along the lines of party and class,” he countered.

The only person trying to divide party and class is you. You’ve spent a lot of time pitting people against each other rather than just teaching what the Church teaches and uniting us all under that. This is how that’s done: https://youtu.be/Pi1pHExl6Ug

On solidarity, he said that Americans, beginning with Catholics, must learn to put the common good above self-interest. When it comes to dialogue, he said a new tone of encounter needs to be embraced.

Oh, come on! Did he really attempt the role of the peacemaker??? He lives his life for self-interests. When he was up my way he’d pit Catholics against Catholics and Catholics. He doesn’t want the common good. He wants his good. He is the last person who should talk about tone, civility, decency. Please feel free to search my blog for his “tone” (or tone deafness).

“It is vital that we be less magisterial and more dialogical even on those issues on which our convictions are most profound,” said McElroy.

Translation: We should talk less about Church teaching (or not at all) and just do whatever satan tells us.