"Springtime of Vatican II" Update

Texas Catholics are Liberal, Liberal, Liberal

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        Texas is probably the most conservative state in the United States. Yet a recent poll of Texans by the Scripps Howard organization demonstrates why Pope John Paul II spoke of a "silent apostasy" not long before his death.

        As reported by Associated Press on May 23, 2005, "Most Texas Catholics disagree with the church's position on birth control, according to the Scripps Howard Texas Poll. Seventy-four percent of Catholics believe the church should back birth control, the poll found." Of course, the birth control pill is a form of silent abortion that claims untold hundreds of millions of lives by preventing implantation after conception.

        In response to this dire news, Bishop Edmond Carmody of the Diocese of Corpus Christi "said the pope has no choice but to follow church teachings. ‘It's the teaching of the Lord,’ Carmody told the Scripps Howard News Service for a story in Monday's editions. ‘The pope and all of us have to follow the teachings of the Lord.’" What a ringing endorsement of divine law! Gee whiz, folks, we just have no choice but to follow "the teachings of the Lord." The Bishop makes divine law sound like some policy that cannot be changed, as much as we would like to change it.

        But as the great Jesuit theologian of the 16^th Century, Francisco Suarez, explained, what the eternal law and natural law prohibit are not prohibited merely because of "the teachings of the Lord," but because the very order of God’s own creation requires that He prohibit them by His law. Not even God could make contraception lawful, just as not even God could make abortion lawful. For God can never will evil.

        The same poll showed "50 percent [of Catholics] supporting priests marrying and 45 percent opposing it," with "43 percent agree[ing] that women should be able to become priests, and 50 percent disagree[ing]." And that’s in the most conservative state in America. Imagine what the results would be in, say, Massachusetts.

        Most damning of all is this statistic from the poll: "On abortion, 33 percent of Texans supported making Catholic doctrine less strict. Forty-nine percent of Catholics said the pope should make the doctrine less strict; 46 percent disagreed." That is, a greater percentages of Catholics than non-Catholics in Texas believe the Church should liberalize Her teaching against abortion. That says it all.

        Add this poll to the mountain of evidence on the utter failure of the Vatican II "renewal" of the Church, which has actually been a sustained attack on Her integrity. And pray that Pope Benedict XVI, instead of ceaselessly invoking Vatican II, will act to break the spell of this ill-starred Council, whose ambiguous novelties and vague pastoral directives have added nothing to the life of the Church but confusion, division and decay.