By
Jonquil Frankham
WILMINGTON,
October 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– Senator Joseph Biden’s
bishop, Bishop W. Francis Malooley
of Wilmington, Delaware, has
publicly corrected the Democratic
VP candidate on the Catholic
Church’s teachings on
abortion in a letter published
in The News Journal.
In
Biden’s interview with
The News Journal published October
19, the Catholic politician
referred to what he claimed
was the Catholic Church’s
long-standing internal “debate”
over the morality of abortion.
“[T]hroughout the church's
history, we've argued between
whether or not it is wrong in
every circumstance and the degree
of wrong. Catholics have this
notion, it's almost a gradation.”
According to Biden, abortion
wasn’t finally condemned
by the Church until the 1860’s,
under Pius IX.
The
bishop tells his readers, however,
that Biden
is “simply incorrect.”
The Judeo-Christian tradition
has always held abortion a grave
evil, and the Didache, a Christian
document dating from the end
of the first century, “explicitly
condemns abortion without exception.”
Some
ancient and medieval theologians
did question when life in the
womb could be considered human,
or endowed with a soul, observes
the bishop. Aquinas concluded
that a baby was human when it
looked human: that is, when
its sex could be determined.
“Nevertheless”,
the bishop points out, “they
(theologians) universally condemned
all abortions.”
Biden
said that he finds his “comfort
zone” as a pro-abortion
Catholic in
Roe v. Wade, which is, he proposes,
a “sort of a civil remedy…
for a theological dilemma.”
The
VP candidate also referred to
the Trimester division of Roe
v. Wade, which is now obsolete.
Roe v. Wade originally differentiated
between the first, second, and
third trimesters. It said that
life in the first trimester
is entirely expendable because
not recognizably human, but
that the state becomes increasingly
interested in the life of the
baby in the second and third
trimesters, as he or she becomes
more and more obviously human.
The Supreme Court no longer
makes any distinction between
the first and second trimesters.
Bishop
Malooley insists: “Since
there is no gradation in the
Church’s teaching on abortion,
there is no way the medically
obsolete division of pregnancy
into three trimesters by Roe
v. Wade can have any bearing
on the rightness or wrongness
of abortion. Taking
an innocent life in the womb
is wrong at any stage of pregnancy.”
Joe
Biden claims that his Catholic
upbringing formed him in a “culture
of social responsibility,”
and implies that his position
on abortion devolves naturally
from this culture. His bishop
tells him, however, that the
American Constitution holds
life as the most fundamental
right of man and that “[t]his
understanding of the state’s
primary obligation to protect
human life is also fundamental
to Catholic social doctrine
to which the senator points.
Without life all other rights
are meaningless.”
Bishop
Malooley concludes his letter,
saying, “This Sunday,
all the parishes in the Catholic
Diocese of Wilmington will pray
the Litany of St. Thomas More,
martyr and patron saint of statesmen,
politicians and lawyers. We
will ask St. Thomas More to
intercede so all statesmen and
politicians may be courageous
and effective in their defense
and promotion of the sanctity
of human life. We hope Sen.
Biden will carefully listen
to the Church’s 2,000
years of testimony on abortion
and that he will join in the
defense and promotion of the
sanctity of life.”