Kmiec...the Lawyer Within

Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal…

And so ends Hopkins’ poem "The Times Are Nightfall." It is a simple poem that ends with inviting the reader to think about the commonweal in each of us. The outside world is out of our control, but we have the law over ourselves. We can take control of our inner sanctum and “root out there the sin.” Why do we fail to do so?

I thought of this poem as I read this part from chapter five of Kmiec’s book, page 51:

Matters get tangled, deliberately so, when desperate Republican Faith Partisans seek to indenture the Catholic voter, who would otherwise gravitate toward the hopeful ideals of Barack Obama. The basis for this electoral enslavement? The unfounded claim that the Catholic voter is obliged to vote in a manner that either 1) recognizes only one acceptable means to address abortion (overturning Roe) and/or 2) disregards the full, comprehensive social teaching of the Church, except for addressing abortion by whatever means.

Note, please that the following is an “unfounded claim” by those SOB RFPs: there is only one acceptable means to address abortion and that is overturning Roe. Where, for Pete’s sake, could these RFP dodos get such a goofy idea as the notion that the only acceptable means of addressing the daily killing of innocent children is making it illegal?

Certainly it wasn’t from Faithful Citizenship, the document from the U.S. Bishops which states that

22. There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society,because they are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor. Such actions are so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. These are called “intrinsically evil” actions. They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned. A prime example is the intentional taking of innocent human life, as in abortion and euthanasia. In our nation, “abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others” (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 5). It is a mistake with grave moral consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice. A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed.

Sooo, the bishops seem to be saying – and it is the bishops here and not Catholics in Alliance – they are saying that a “legal system,” mark that Professor-of-Constitutional-Law Kmiec, a legal system that allows for abortion is “fundamentally flawed.” But nope, according to the good Professor of law, when addressing the legal killing of innocent children…you know…abortion, it is ridiculous to claim, as those bastard RFP’s do, that there is only one acceptable way to address it, namely making it illegal.

But, you might say, Professor Kmiec goes on to write, “and/or disregards the full, comprehensive social teaching of the Church.” Right, right. Surely we cannot subjugate all the rest of the Church’s social teaching to addressing the banning of abortion. What are those damned RFP’s thinking after all? Have they read Pope John Paul II’s Christifidelis laici where the pontiff writes:

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.

Okay, so let me get this straight. The RFP’s are batty because… because they make the unfounded claim that there in only one acceptable way to deal with legalized murder and because in holding up abortion they are ignoring all the other wonderful aspects of social doctrine about health, home, and work? I see. So given the quotes from the bishops and the Pope – I mean the real bishops and the real Pope – what does Professor Kmiec have to say for himself? Not much I suppose.

That’s alright though. We have the world within. Our will is law in our small commonweal, and if we want to decide that the murder of innocents is alright, well then to hell with those RFPs. Obama’s got “hopeful ideals”…”hopeful ideals”!