In yesterday’s column I referred to the “seamless garment” philosophy as being responsible for the death of many of the unborn. I believe that millions of babies have been slaughtered in their mother’s wombs because of this flawed philosophy.

I usually refer to the seamless garment as a philosophy because that’s all it is. It is not the magisterial teaching of the Church. It is a philosophy that was thought up by the late Cardinal Bernardin in the 1970s. For the authentic teaching of the Church on life issues one only needs to read John Paul II’s Gospel of Life. You will find that this encyclical is the antithesis of the seamless garment.

One reason that Catholics are still confused over the primacy of life in the realm of social issues is because our bishops keep giving us ambiguous teachings such as Faithful Citizenship. Faithful Citizenship, in one segment, equates the issue of “racism” with the issue of abortion.

Apart from the ludicrousness of this, racism is a loosely defined term in American society. For example, some people imagined that recent criticism of the group ACORN was somehow racist.

The seamless garment, consistent life, common good, Catholics are slowly losing credibility. This is plainly evidenced by the public statements of over 50 bishops on the primacy of the issue of abortion in the recent election. One bishop even went so far as to say that the USCCB does not speak for him on the issue of abortion. He essentially repudiated the flawed USCCB document, Faithful Citizenship.

On judgment day, many priests and bishops will have much to account for when they are forced to confront the fact that their actions, or lack of them, were responsible for millions of deaths of unborn babies. I am sure some will try to dialog with God about the importance of global warming and universal health care, but I don’t suppose He will be very amused. Perhaps their Purgatory will be to read the Gospel of Life over and over again until they get it right.

Of course, it would be far better if they would sit down and read it today. That would put an end to the nonsense and many thousands of babies would then be given the wonderful gift of life. That’s an outcome that would be truly consistent with the teaching of the Church.