"Catholicism's Achilles Heel" -
Judie Brown, President of American Life League

Judie Brown nailed this right on the head. I certainly couldn't have said it any better. Here's a bit of her op/ed piece from LifeSite.net; (emphasis mine)

Recent remarks by retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick are a reminder of the tragic situation that exists within the Catholic Church these days. It is as though we were living in a twilight zone where there is no right or wrong, no moral absolutes of any kind, no guiding principles that apply in every situation regardless of the persons involved.

In a recent statement, Cardinal McCarrick took aim at Archbishop Raymond Burke’s treatise on why every person who distributes Holy Communion must be prepared to deny the sacrament to any public figure that is Catholic and is also pro-abortion. He said of Archbishop Burke, “I very much respect his position. It’s not mine.”

What exactly does that mean? It occurs to me that it means that the cardinal does not take Church law seriously, but rather perceives a myriad of choices with regard to how a particular canon in church law should be implemented. I find that astounding, but also perfectly understandable in today’s relativistic atmosphere.

The canon law in question is not confusing, but states quite clearly that those “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” This particular canon is not any more debatable than one of the Ten Commandments or any of the other canon laws. In fact, the law in question is designed to accomplish two things: protect Christ from sacrilege and provide the errant Catholic with an example of how far he has strayed from Church teaching in the hope that the soul will repent and come back into the fold.

Cardinal McCarrick did go on to say that “pro-choice Catholic politicians” need to be persuaded that their position is wrong rather than denying them the body and blood of Christ. The precise reason why this thinking is flawed is perhaps best stated by Pope Benedict XVI, who while airborne in flight to Mexico a few months ago, told a group of reporters that the Mexican bishops’ threat of excommunication for Catholic politicians who voted in favor of the new abortion law “was not something arbitrary, but part of Church law. It’s based simply on the principle that the killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with going to communion with the body of Christ.”

The Holy Father’s words rang around the world, as one Catholic writer opined, and even moved evangelicals like Dr. James Dobson and Frank Pastore to hail his courageous statement. So why isn’t every single bishop, priest, deacon and Eucharistic minister in the Catholic Church equally motivated and inspired by this pope?

I fear the answer to this question is that there is too much political posturing and not enough commitment to saving souls in far too many places within the Catholic Church these days.