Pretty much every time the Church speaks…

about, say, war or poverty or racism or refugees or capital punishment or a living wage or gun violence or health care or the care of creation or a host of other issues, you can guarantee that a chorus will pipe up to say something like, “When is [Bergoglio/damn lib bishop X] going to speak up about abortion and not just tell trendy libs what they want to hear!”

People who act like the entire world is perpetually on the verge of forgetting the Catholic Church opposes abortion if Catholics do not make it their sole focus 24/7 really mean, “I want to rob, harm, punish, neglect and kill all the other forms of human life my political ideology loathes, so I will brandish this unborn child as a human shield for that and make open war on most of the Church’s teaching if it gets in my way.”

Seriously.  Does anybody in the world not know what the Catholic Church thinks about abortion and the right to life of the unborn?  Is that some great secret we must hammer away at lest somebody living in a cave or unable to comprehend human language is somehow ignorant of it?  If we take a minute to say, “Refugees deserve to be treated like human beings” or “we really do owe it to the least of these to see that they are fed, clothed, and housed is it really likely that any normal person will say, “Well, I guess the Catholic Church thinks abortion is AOK now!”

The transformation of “prolife” Christians into a monomaniac sect passionately in love with unjust war, torture, kidnapping of refugee children, unnecessary executions, and any other sin their bishops in the GOP command them to fight the Church for is one of the weirdest transformations in history.

Not that it is without its humorous aspects.  Listening to gray-haired EWTN fans complain, “When was the last time you heard a sermon about abortion?” (Um, about a week ago, if memory serves) and “Why doesn’t my priest preach on contraception to my parish of aging Boomers whose fertility is 20 years in the rearview mirror?” makes clear that the purpose of the sermon for such people is not “hearing a gospel that will change my life” but “Unit Cohesion Team Building that assures us We are good and They are bad.” And as the EWTN MAGA Cult has hardened into a mere culture war ideology, the demand has become for sermons to tell us, “We are the Best. They are the Worst” not to confront us with our own sin.

MAGA Jesus came not to say, “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand!” but “You are the real victim here. And Those People Over There are the Enemy! The ends justify the means in defeating them. And that holds true even if the earthly power you have wedded yourself to body and soul actually is responsible for establishing and entrenching your abortion regime and has increased funding for Planned Parenthood 8% over the past year and will re-fund Planned Parenthood to tune of $550 million this year. The important thing is that you will use the One Ring to do good in good time. Meanwhile, it is vital that you keep your grip on power because you are Good and They are Evil. Let nothing, not even the pesky unborn you have, for policy’s sake, temporarily had to care about stand in the way of the Greater Good you will do in the sweet bye and bye!”