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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 6, 2007 / 16 Adar, 5767

Are you really a Catholic, or do you just play one on TV?

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Frances Kissling, go-to gal for media quotes about all things Catholic, has stepped down as head of Catholics for a Free Choice. Religion reporting just got a whole lot harder. Catholics for a Free Choice is a Catholic group of abortion activists' dreams. If you hit the CFFC Web site, you'll read: "Ask Pope Benedict to Lift the Ban on Condoms!" And in a closing salvo in the group's magazine, "Conscience," Kissling asks, "Is abortion a morally neutral act? Is it, as some have said, an unambiguous moral good?" Usually a group with the word "Catholic" in its name would be clear on those kinds of questions.


But Catholics for a Free Choice is not a Catholic group; it's a "Catholic" group, one whose Catholic identity doesn't go much deeper than the name on its letterhead. In reality, it's something much closer to a liberal-Democratic group — who it comes closest to speaking for — than anything else.


As the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference has pointed out, CFFC's claims to be Catholic are bogus. In a 2000 statement — not the first — they declared: "A group calling itself Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) has been publicly supporting abortion while claiming it speaks as an authentic Catholic voice. That claim is false. In fact, the group's activity is directed to rejection and distortion of Catholic teaching about the respect and protection due to defenseless unborn human life ... (CFFC) is an arm of the abortion lobby in the United States and throughout the world."


But that chicanery seems to work as a "Catholic" source for many a reporter anyway. You could feel the pain, in fact, on the pages of The New York Times when Kissling stepped down in February. A headline described her as "Backing Abortion Rights While Keeping the Faith." The same story quoted her saying, "I'm so Catholic, I can't get away from it." Underlining the point that conservatives are terribly judgmental (the fools believe in right and wrong), the Times reporter described Kissling as "one of the most vocal of the so-called bad Catholics, those who manage to accommodate the opposing sentiments of love for the church and anger at much of its doctrine."


Kissling's retirement marks an opportunity for The New York Times to report on some other Catholics - maybe even Catholics who actually believe what the Church teaches to take to the media.


In her exit interview, Kissling complained to the "Times" about the Church hierarchy: "It abuses nuns, anyone who thinks, homosexuals, women who have abortions. It sexually abuses children. It treats people badly, and something has to be done to change its abusive nature."


Yes, the Catholic Church has its share of sinners and corruption. But giving further evidence that Kissling's been right in line with the Democrats, her diatribe sounded a lot like the anti-Catholic rantings of a blogger recently hired and allowed to resign by the John Edwards presidential campaign. Describing the pope as a "dictator," the blogger said that the Catholic doctrine of limbo is "wielded by everyday Catholics to explain where the souls of unborn babies go, which is just an extra way to guilt trip women who have abortions."


Perhaps now that Kissling has time on her hands, she can do some freelancing for Edwards?


The media have been inadvertently helpful to the Catholic Church over the years. Their relentless investigation earlier this decade uncovered abuse. In the wake of the scandals, John Paul II biographer George Weigel thanked reporters at the likes of the Boston Globe for what they did: "If G-d could work through the Assyrians in the Old Testament, G-d can certainly work through The New York Times and the Boston Globe today, whether the Times or the Globe realizes what's happening or not. ... The trauma of the Catholic Church in the United States in 2002 will become an opportunity to deepen and extend the reforms of Vatican II if the Church becomes more Catholic, not less — if the Church rediscovers the courage to be Catholic."


Catholics — those who truly have the courage to stand athwart a secular culture of death yelling stop — should find their best and brightest clear-talking believers, and get them into the Blackberry address books of reporters and bookers and bloggers. The "Catholic" voices ought to be Catholic. That's how you get out the Good News.

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