Catholic Insight

Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World

Catholic Insight

Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World

Words can hurt, but abortions do kill

If you know anything about Ann Coulter you will know that she adores controversy and likes nothing more than to annoy her critics—and that’s exactly what occurred earlier this year. After the final Presidential debate in October she tweeted, “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.” It was pretty silly and largely pointless, but it pales in comparison to the abuse and filth thrown at conservatives and Christians by leftists and atheists on a regular basis.

That emotional cripple Dan Savage, for example—who ironically began the It Gets Better Campaign to allegedly stop gay bullying—devoted an entire chunk of his sordid life working to link former Senator Rick Santorum’s name to an internet definition of excrement mixed with semen; if you doubt me, look it up. He then blackmailed Santorum saying that if the politician donated lots of money to one of Savage’s favourite causes, he’d stop the hate campaign against Santorum and his family. Yet Savage is still lauded as a caring, loving activist.

During the 2008 Presidential Election, one well-known left-wing comic called for Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to be gang raped, and there were numerous jokes made about killing her Down syndrome baby. Hypocrisy, thy name is leftism.

But let’s discuss that Down syndrome issue a little more. Palin was mocked and even condemned for giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome, even by fairly mainstream commentators. This was intensely vile and acutely horrible, but was met with very little response from the mainstream. But after Ann Coulter made her trivial, if unfortunate, comments, John Franklin Stephens, a thirty-year-old man with Down syndrome and someone who has worked to compete at the Special Olympics, attacked Coulter for using what he saw as hateful language.

“After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the president by linking him to people like me,” he wrote. “You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV. I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash. Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honour. No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.”

Well written, sir, and genuinely moving and heartfelt. Words describing the handicapped are often used to denigrate, and it’s unfair and damaging. But just hold on one little politically correct moment. As much as Coulter should have been more empathetic in what she said, she didn’t kill anybody, did she. Can the same be said about Barack Obama, his people, his followers, his words, and his ideas? Obama and his ilk and ideology advocate and legislate open and funded abortion, which has led to a culture in North America and Europe where people like you, good Mr. Stephens, have around a 10% chance of ever being born. You see, almost 90% of unborn children in the womb who are detected as being likely, not even certain, to have Down syndrome, are killed, thrown away, dumped. So as much as I admire your eloquence and understand and appreciate your anger, you are simply reacting to the wrong provocation and the wrong provocateur, and are a victim of a liberal culture than blames the good for the crimes of the evil.

Ann Coulter pushes buttons with comments and statements, but her opponents advocate and operate death policies and slaughter centres. Coulter would fight for a Down syndrome person’s right to life, but maybe offend some of them with what she says. Her detractors would smile in smug complacency and self-righteous indulgence as Down syndrome boys and girls were murdered, and then congratulate themselves on being so offended by words like “retard.” Words can hurt. But abortions do kill. Every moment, every day, everywhere. Catholics, evangelicals, pro-lifers, and their allies fight for the lives of the handicapped and the disabled, while atheists, socialists, liberals, and their friends campaign to make sure such people are never born. God bless you Mr. Stephens, but be grateful that you ever had the chance to be offended and to write a letter in the first place. Many never have that opportunity.

Carney’s Amoral Majority

After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading

A Tale of Two Benedicts

A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading

The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus

As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading

Saint Gemma Galgani

On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading

An Ideological and Improper Translation

I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading

Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers

Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading

Three Easter Musical Gems: Bach, Palestrina and Byrd

A very blessed and glorious Easter! Christus surrexit vere, alleluia! As we begin this Easter Octave with the great Solemnity of Easter, music to lift the soul would be one of Bach’s Easter cantatas, composed during his time at Leipzig in the early 1700’s, for the six Sundays of this festive season, leading up to[…]Continue reading

Good Friday and Suffering

Evil and pain is always a mystery, that whole mysterium iniquitatis, of which Saint Paul writes (2 Thess 2:7). In 1984, Pope Saint John Paul II penned an Apostolic Letter on the nature and purpose of human suffering, Salvifici Doloris (curiously, now looking back, the same year he made his first apostolic journey to Canada).[…]Continue reading

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