By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) told a recent gathering of priests that during his meeting in March with Barack Obama, the president insisted he was not pro-abortion.
According to a report by the Catholic News Service (CNS), Cardinal Francis George elaborated on a March 18 meeting he had with Obama at the White House, saying that the president wants to make pro-life advocates think he’s on their side.
“It’s hard to disagree with him because he’ll always tell you he agrees with you,” Cardinal George said. “Maybe that’s political. I think he sincerely wants to agree with you. You have to say, again and again, ‘No, Mr. President, we don’t agree (on abortion).'”
Cardinal George expressed his concern to Obama about the president’s decision to overturn the Mexico City Policy, which opens the door to funding groups that promote and perform abortions in other nations.
“He said we weren’t exporting abortion,” the cardinal recounted. “I said, ‘Yes we are.’ He would say, ‘I know I have to do certain things here. … But be patient and you’ll see the pattern will change.’ I said, ‘Mr. President, you’ve given us nothing but the wrong signals on this issue.’ So, we’ll see, but I’m not as hopeful now as I was when he was first elected.”
Cardinal George said the impression he was left with after the meeting is that Obama “has his political debts to pay, and so he’s paying them.”
He also said he has a pessimistic view of the situation under Obama and the long-term outlook.
“I think we’re up against something a little bit like slavery,” he said, saying that Obama and his pro-abortion allies are unwilling to change the law to protect human life before birth.
“It’s a society-dividing issue, and on this issue, we’re with Abraham Lincoln and he’s with Stephen Douglas, and he doesn’t like to hear that, but that’s where he is,” George said.
“For 80 years we were a slave republic, and it took a terrible war to end that. And now for 40 years we’re in an abortion regime, and I’m not sure how that’s going to end,” he added.
Ultimately, Cardinal George said that on the life issue, Obama is “on the wrong side of history.”
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