The Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee seems downright antagonistic toward Catholic beliefs, institutions, and people.
The Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee seems downright antagonistic toward Catholic beliefs, institutions, and people.
N ow that Democratic elites have forced President Biden out of the presidential race and anointed Vice President Kamala Harris as their new candidate, it is worth reminding ourselves just how radical she is — especially when it comes to Catholics in public life.
In December 2019, Senator Harris confronted judicial nominee Brian Buescher about his membership . . . in the Knights of Columbus. The California senator asked Buescher pointedly if his membership in an “all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men” that affirmed teachings of his church disqualified him from sitting on the federal bench.
Questioning Brian Buescher’s ability to serve as a federal judge because of his membership in the Knights of Columbus was a thinly veiled attack on his Catholic belief in the equal dignity of all human beings from conception to natural death. She was really asking, “Are you that sort of American Catholic that actually believes the things your church teaches?” Or, as Harris’s fellow California senator put it during the confirmation hearing of another Catholic judicial nominee around the same time, “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.”
Just what is so frightening about the Knights of Columbus? What possible objection could Harris have to this organization? Could it be its support of those displaced by the war in Ukraine? Could it be that the Knights provide 200,000 winter coats annually to children across the United States and Canada? Or that this longtime fraternal organization provided millions of dollars in relief funds in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and supported the families of first responders who lost their lives in the attacks on 9/11?
Or could it be the 1,500 ultrasound machines that the Knights have given to pregnancy care centers, where American girls and women can receive free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, support and counseling, parenting classes, and material support years after their children are born and ask nothing in return? Could it be that the mere fact that these charitable centers don’t provide abortions disqualifies anyone from serving in public office who’s in the Knights or supports the them?
According to Harris, the answer is yes — a cold-blooded yes.
Never mind that the Knights build schools in Uganda for HIV/AIDS orphans. Never mind that the Knights provide supplies to needy migrant families at our southern border. Never mind the Knights’ thousands of other corporal works of mercy at an international, national, and local level. In the bigoted eyes of Kamala Harris, this noble group’s support of women choosing life for their babies is enough to cancel it and anyone affiliated with it.
Harris has a long record of not only using her political power to bully and persecute those who advocate for the vulnerable unborn but also voting against even the most basic protections for these children: In addition to directly attacking pregnancy centers, as a U.S. senator she twice voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have simply required that infants who survive a failed abortion receive the same basic medical care to which all other infants at that stage are entitled.
And any lingering doubts about Harris’s dedication to the abortion cause completely dissolved when recently she became the first sitting vice president to visit — and celebrate — an abortion clinic. You don’t get more full-on abortion than that.
Vice President Harris has been the Biden administration’s enthusiastic mouthpiece for promoting unlimited abortion. And, if history is any guide, she will become the Abortion President, relentlessly attacking individuals or groups that dare to think that the unborn deserve protection at any stage or that pregnant women should receive support and resources to keep their children if they choose.
For her, a judicial nominee is disqualified for belonging to an organization that, among its many, many charitable deeds, supports, through the work of pregnancy care centers, a woman’s choice not to have an abortion. We can be certain, then, that anyone who advocates for the unborn, in action, word, or affiliation, will suffer in a Harris regime.
The Knights of Columbus are more than 2 million Catholic men inspired by their faith to serve the neediest among us — not just in word but in deed. Yes, they serve in ways that align with their Catholic faith, but they serve one and all: the orphaned, the hungry, the homeless, the cold and the lost. And that is something our nation — and our world — needs more of, not less.