Chilling those words.

But close to Satan and Judas Iscariot has to be comparing someone to Pontius Pilate. And that’s just what Pope Francis did recently.

The Pope was scheduled to give a prepared speech to 9,000 students, alumni, and teachers from Jesuit-run schools in Italy and Albania. But he asked the crowd if he should ditch the prepared speech. a resounding “Yes!” burst from the audience. So he touched on the highlights of his speech and opened himself up for questions.

Now Pope Benedict XVI used to answer questions, too. But they were submitted in advance and his answers were always top-rate. After all, is there a better theological mind than Benedict? But there’s something refreshing about Pope Francis’ answers. They are spontaneous and his answers don’t sound like they come from a professor, but from a priest. (That’s not an insult to Benedict, who I love very dearly.)

Francis answered a question about why he isn’t living in the Papal apartments. “It’s not just a question of wealth. [It] is not that luxurious, don’t worry.” He just couldn’t live so isolated and alone; he prefers living in community, closer to other priests.

Well, one adult asked the Pope if Catholics have “an obligation to get involved in politics.”

His answer, courtesy of Catholic News Service, shows us that non-involvement in politics is not an option:

“We can’t play the role of Pontius Pilate and wash our hands of it,” he said. “Politics is one of the highest forms of charity because it seeks the common good.”

He said those who complain that politics is “too dirty” should ask themselves why. Perhaps it’s “because Christians haven’t gotten involved with an evangelical spirit.”

It’s easy to blame others, he said, but people need to ask themselves: “Me? What am I doing” about it?

Pope Francis’ off-the-cuff remarks remind me of my one of my favorite speeches by President Ronald Reagan. It was his “Evil Empire” speech. He was speaking to a group of evangelical ministers about the evil imperialist ambitions of the atheistic Soviet Union. Reagan pushed back on the nuclear freeze crowd, who tended to treat the Soviet Union and the United States like moral equals — as if they were brothers engaged in a mindless quarrel.

“I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”

Yes, politics can be trite. Yes, politics can be nasty. And that provides us with the opportunity to make it better. 

We have a duty to stand up for the defenseless unborn child whose very life is in danger. We must defend our Catholic schools from a federal government which wants to force the school to pay for abortion drugs. We must stand strong for the principle that children deserve to be raised by a mother and a father.

There are other injustices to address: how big business and big government collude to squeeze small businesses and the rest of us, how a government-run school system refuses to allow poor people to escape, how government saps initiative with its culture of dependency, etc etc.

The answer to all these problems is not to throw your hands up, declare that there’s sin all around, and then go back to your couch and watch television.

Do something about it!

Running for office is one option. If there are not enough good Christians in office making decisions which involve the dignity of the human person, then the answer is to get more honorable men and men into office, right? So: Look in the mirror.

Is running for office not in the cards for you and your family?

Well, then help others who are good and virtuous to run for office. See, that’s where the CatholicVote.org Candidate Fund comes in. We look over the landscape to find honorable men and women who are willing to take the jump and enter the arena. These are the people who are willing to run for office and stand up for life, marriage, and religious liberty.

And we claim that we want more men and women to take that risk and run for office defending these bedrock principles, right?

But what if they run for office and there’s no one there to support them because Christians have said, “Oh, politics is dirty and destructive. I’m done with it.”

Let those words never come from our lips.

With about 700 World War II veterans dying every day, let us never forget their sacrifice.

Here is General Eisenhower’s D-Day Proclamation issued on this in 1944:

Catholic commentator Mark Shea offered a very public apology today for the way in which he has argued on his blog lately. While contemplating the Eucharist during the Mass of Corpus Christi, Mark said it became apparent that he has received messages from many people saying, in effect: “You taste bitter.”

He responded:

And I couldn’t argue with that. I do taste bitter. And for that I am deeply, profoundly sorry, because it is through my fault, through my fault, through my own most grievous fault that I do. I’ve become bitter in much of my interaction with people. And bitterness is a root that “defiles many” according to Hebrews. In my case, I think I have defiled quite a number of hearts who came here looking for the gospel and instead just got Mark Shea getting increasingly cynical and angry about all sorts of stuff. You can’t eat food, including food for the soul, that is bitter. My apologies to all to whom I have done this.

But Mark’s self-examination doesn’t stop there. People who he thought willfully refused to get the point? He started to dehumanize them. He also confessed that he treated those in the public spotlight like they were not human persons. And he included Lila Rose of Live Action in this.

To Lila Rose (and all her associates and sundry supporters) my sincere apologies and contrition. I got so caught up in arguing about points I wanted to persuade people of that I completely failed to see you as human beings and reduced you to means to an end. It was a sin and all I can do is ask for forgiveness. In addition, as the argument has “hardened” (for want of a better word) I have let that bitter taste poison the conversation. It’s lost people who might otherwise have listened, which is my own stupid fault.

To be clear, he wasn’t announcing that he had changed his mind on a specific theological question. What he was doing was more impressive. He was calling himself out for the way in which he argued: “Again, the point is not who was right or wrong about the point being argued, it’s that I have been wrong in the way that I argued, very often reducing people to means.”

Mark added: “In [the] future, I’m going to be trying to take the blog in different directions. Don’t know what that will look like, but I think it needs to happen.”

I’ve also made mistakes in public and had to apologize in public. It’s incredibly difficult and humbling to do. Mark’s earnest apology is to be commended.

I have met Mark face-to-face (offline as they say) and consider him to be a friend. I think he has a service to provide Catholics who honestly yearn for the truth of the Catholic Church and strive to be faithful to her. Much in our politics today is distorted by a Culture of Death. Conservatives and Catholics alike are not immune from this. (And the Culture of Death affects how we treat each other; it affects human sexuality and greed, etc.) And so we need to make sure that we take stock from time to time and make sure we question our cultural assumptions.

And Mark can be excellent at that. He can remind people that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are totally unjustified. He explains that torture is immoral (and by the way, doesn’t work well anyway.) He’s not afraid to call out the Prosperity Gospel and those who ignore the poor. He gets Catholics to really second-guess the Bush-Wilsonian aggressive foreign policy which tries to solve all the world’s problems.

While I don’t agree with him on every issue, I’m glad that he makes Catholics defend their positions in line with the Church rather than simply accepting everything Rush Limbaugh says as infallible.

So I hope that Mark will continue to write about politics and about how Catholics have a role to play in improving our public policy debates.

Dr. Anthony Levatino testifies in support of a 20-week abortion ban

UPDATE: The House Judiciary Committee passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act 20-12 on June 13. The entire House of Representatives will vote on this landmark legislation on Tuesday, June 18.

Ban abortions after 20 weeks. Nationwide.

That’s what legislation debated in a House subcommittee yesterday would do.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, who is amending his D.C. Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act (H.R. 1797) to expand the ban nationwide. (Franks is also chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, which held the hearing.)

Exceptions to the bill are provided for the life of the mother or “substantial and irreversible physical impairment.” The bill specifically prohibits “psychological or emotional conditions” from qualifying as exceptions.

You might be asking: Why 20 weeks?

When deciding the constitutionality of any abortion regulation, the Supreme Court demands a compelling governmental interest.

So, the language of Rep. Franks’ bill spells it out:

“[T]here is substantial medical evidence that an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain at least by 20 weeks after fertilization, if not earlier. It is the purpose of the Congress to assert a compelling governmental interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that they are capable of feeling pain.”

To back this up, Chairman Franks had former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino testify. He had performed 1,200 abortions, including late-term abortions. He urged Congress to pass this bill.

Watch his powerful testimony:

You can also read testimony from Maureen Condic, Ph.D of the University of Utah School of Medicine, Dept of Nuerobiology and Anatomy (PDF version). And many of you will recognize the name of Jill Stanek, a Registered Nurse who worked at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois (PDF version).

This bill, by focusing on eliminating pain on unborn children, could survive the current constitutional framework on abortion while also having the broad support of the American people. A poll commissioned by National Right to Life Committee and conducted by The Polling Company found that 64% of Americans supported this legislation and only 30% opposed it.

And we as Catholics can support this legislation even though it doesn’t ban all abortions. As Pope John Paul II, wrote in Evangelium Vitae:

“When it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.” (#73)

This bill has a good chance of passing in Committee. While last year’s bill dealt only with the nation’s capital, it was approved by the House of Representatives (only to die in the Senate). This legislation is nationwide, so we will need to encourage Members of the House who supported last year’s bill to also support this more comprehensive legislation.

It is extremely unlikely that the Democratic Senate would pass this bill and it’s a certainty that President Obama would veto this bill.

But that doesn’t mean we’re wasting our time. Far from it.

We have the opportunity to educate our Members of Congress and our neighbors about what’s going on at abortion facilities all across our land. And we can tell them how to stop it.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban was passed by Congress in 1995 and 1997. Both times they were vetoed by pro-abortion President Clinton. The bill finally became law in 2003, when it was signed by President George W. Bush. Finally, in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the bill was in fact constitutional.

Let’s make sure this legislation doesn’t take 12 years from start to finish. Today we begin the hard but necessary work of educating and mobilizing Americans on behalf of the Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act.

Yeah, this one:

(AP Photo/Marco Guerrieri)

After an outcry, they “updated” the statue.

A year later, the result:

(AP Photo)

Yeah, still ghastly. Totally unworthy of such a great man.

Commuter Alberto Donella also wasn’t convinced. He told the AP: ”It’s not him. It’s not him,” he said as he walked by the statue. “He was joyful. He was nothing like this here. For me it still looks like a refrigerator.”

Refrigerator. You nailed it, Alberto.

Rome got it wrong. But Czestochowa got it right.

Workers today in Czestochowa are putting the final touches on a 45.3- foot statue of Pope John Paul II (on private land with private funds) in the city famous for an icon of Our Lady.

Folks, this is how you make a statue of Pope John Paul II:

AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski

Pope Paul VI’s papacy began in 1963, and he wore a papal tiara for his coronation.

But Pope Paul VI did not wear the papal tiara much after that. He made a conscious effort to focus on the papacy’s spiritual aspect and to downplay the papacy’s regal splendor. In fact, he donated his tiara to National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.

Pope John Paul I carried on this same sense of humility, and took it a step further. His Mass was not a coronation, but an installation. And he never wore a tiara.

His successor, Pope John Paul II, likewise was installed instead of crowned. He also never wore a papal tiara. And when he was elected pope, he did not sit on his throne to have the Cardinals kneel before him. From George Weigel’s book Witness to Hope:

“He walked vigorously back to the Sistine Chapel to receive the homage of the cardinals and immediately broke his first precedent. When the papal master of ceremonies indicated that he should sit in front of the altar for the ceremony, John Paul II replied, ‘I receive my brothers standing…’

These gestures suggest a notion of the Pope not a king or a lord over the rest of his bishops, but as a first among equals.

Pope John Paul II also tried to extend an olive branch to the Eastern Orthodox. And he talked repeatedly about the need for unity between the East and West. In Ut unum sint, he said: “The Church must breathe with her two lungs!”

Patriarch Teoctist of the Romanian Orthodox Church invited Pope John Paul II to his country. In May 1999, Pope John Paul II became the first pope to visit a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Schism in 1054.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II visited Greece and met with Patriarch Christodoulos. Their meeting started a bit chilly when the Patriarch mentioned “13 offenses” of the Roman Catholic Church against the Eastern Orthodox, including the pillaging of Constantinople. The Patriarch told John Paul: “Until now, there has not been heard a single request for pardon” for the “maniacal crusaders of the 13th century.”

The Pope replied, “For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us forgiveness.” The Patriarch immediately applauded the Pope for his remarks.

When Pope Benedict XVI was elected, he likewise was installed and not crowned. He also wore no tiara. In fact, his papal coat of arms had no tiara at all. It had instead a bishop’s mitre. It was a way of emphasizing the primacy of Peter in a way more acceptable to the Orthodox.

And relations with the East continued to improve during the papacy of Benedict XVI. Here is Pope Benedict XVI with the Patriarch of Constantinople.

We have yet to see what Pope Francis will do with his papal coat of arms. There’s no doubt that he will be installed and not crowned. And this humble archbishop who rode the bus is certainly  not going to wear a tiara. (I prefer traditional priestly vestments like the cassock, but not the royalty associated with the tiara).

And in fact, relations with the East are improving already for the new pope. For the first time since the Great Schism, the Patriarch of Constantinople will attend the inaugural Mass of Pope Francis.

As a teenager, an infection caused Pope Francis to lose a lung. Wouldn’t it be fitting if this Pope with one lung would get the Church to breathe with both lungs again?

Ut unum sint! Let us pray!

And lo and behold, a German is elected to the papacy. The crowd? They loved him.

Huge crowds also welcomed Pope Benedict XVI in Sydney 2008…

…and the World Youth Day in Madrid 2011.

It was in Madrid where Pope Benedict XVI announced the location of the next World Youth Day celebration:

That’s right, the next World Youth Day will be in South America.

The event will be held July 23-28 in Rio de Janiero, which is about a three-hour flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina — where Pope Francis was archbishop.

Hope you booked your hotel already…

The Irish-based Life Institute recently rolled out a video with evidence of medical experts that abortion is NOT a treatment for suicide, to combat the effort by Irish PM Enda Kenny and his Health Minister James Reilly to legalize abortion on the basis of suicide, among other “exceptions” they are pushing for.

The video compliments this information placed in an ad in 29 newspapers across Ireland.

The intensive campaign is having an impact – the opposition leader for the Fianna Fail Party, Micheal Martin, just came out against suicide grounds as has the former Fine Gael leader, John Bruton.

Buoying the spirits of pro-life groups in Ireland is a poll recently released showing a sizable majority (66%) support legal protection of unborn.

With pro-abortion forces feeling the momentum shift, some have resorted to vandalism, such as this attack on the offices of Life Institute which rightly decried as “grotesque and vile’.

Let us continue praying for our brothers and sisters in Ireland in their battle to protect life.

Kennedy is CEO of Autocam and is represented by the CatholicVote.org Legal Defense Fund. (Learn more about the case.)

A U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids last December refused to put the HHS mandate on hold for Autocam, while Kennedy challenged its constitutionality in court. So today the attorneys general are calling on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to reverse this lower court decision and to put a stay on the HHS mandate.

They state in their filing:

Autocam and the Kennedy family assert profound religious objections to the new federal mandate that they must provide insurance covering contraceptive, abortifacient, and sterilization products and services for their employees. Despite allowing myriad exceptions for “grandfathered” and smaller businesses, the federal government will not permit John Kennedy and the Kennedy family to operate their businesses in a way consistent with their religious principles. This federal insistence on subjugating religious values to bureaucratic mandate also has extended to other employers within our States, directly contrary to the protections that [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] was meant to afford.

You can read the entire amicus brief here.

“Let me share with you a wonderful blog that was published in the Huffington Post a few days ago. Stephen White, the author, writes about the Pope’s role in the Catholic Church. I found his piece interesting and thought you would too!”

Yeah, if I were Steve, I’d put that endorsement on my resume.

Anyway, go read the article that Cardinal Dolan recommended…