Woody Bass’s Blog

There has been quite a lot of discussion lately about President Obama’s visit to Notre Dame where he will be giving the commencement speech and will be the recipient of an honorary law degree. This has caused a stir amongst many Catholics because their Pro-Life stance directly conflicts with the Presidents Pro-Choice position on abortion.

As a result, there have been reports of numerous small scale protests with arrests on campus for weeks leading up to his visit. There are also reports that some students will not participate in their graduation ceremony at all instead opting for a separate prayer vigil while some students will silently protest by wearing a white cross with baby’s feet on their cap and gown at the ceremony.

On Fox News Sunday today, Rev. Richard McBrien, who supported the visit, and Rev. Frank Pavone, who is against the visit, joined anchor Chris Wallace to debate Obama being honored by Notre Dame. On the program, Rev McBrien admitted that he was Pro-Life – till death, and appropriately added that those who oppose the Presidents visit were “Pro-Birth”. Rev. Pavone stated Obama’s visit “is about abortion” and went on to mention an abortion rate in this country stating 37 unborn are put to death each day.

I am a firm believer that those who are leaders of organized religion are nothing more than cattle ranchers with cattle prods telling their followers how they should live, think and behave. In addition, I believe those who participate in organized religion are nothing more than the cattle who are too ignorant or stupid not to know that for themselves.

According to CatholicExchange.com, approximately one quarter of all Americans are self-identified Catholics. That is a hell of a lot of people who are getting personal direction by the Catholic Church. While we do not know how many Catholics have chosen abortion, it would be unreasonable to believe that they are not a significant amount.

Considering how concerned the church is with the sick, we also have to believe that a significant number of those who are suffering from HIV/AIDS consider themselves Catholic.

So the church’s staunch position is they are Pro-Life, they want to reduce and even eliminate abortion and sickness while at the same time teaching its followers that birth control is sinful. This is the hypocrisy of their message.

Sex is a basic function of life. The Catholic Church insists on being ignorant of that fact instead of teaching their followers how they can prevent the spread of disease and unwanted pregnancies. For having such conservative values, the church has an awfully communistic approach to human sexuality. They decide for their followers when they can have sex, who they can have it with and even how.

If the Catholic Church really cares so much about life and they are going to continue to tell the ignorant how to live and the ignorant continue to listen, then the church needs to reverse their position on birth control. Because asking people to deny a basic human function doesn’t work and never has. Until they do the rates of abortion and HIV/AIDS will continue to rise along with their ignorance.