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February 4, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Laudate, hailed as the number one Catholic App on Apple’s App Store, has disappointed Catholics for recently hosting prayer reflections that not only honored pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris but took issue with Catholics publicly opposing abortion on account of the division such a stance causes.
Laudate users were dismayed at the app’s Jan. 27 “Daily Bible Verse,” written by Seek First Community, that referred to Kamala Harris as a fruit of St. Angela Merici’s work. The original reflection (which has since been modified) stated:
Christian women is [sic] society's greatest investment. Convinced of this truth, St. Angela Merici founded the Company of St. Ursula, (Ursulines) a secular institute devoted to educating young women to be Christian wives, mothers, teachers, and catechists. Consider the fruits of St Angela's labor: Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, Indira Gandhi, Teresa of Kolkata [sic], Kamala Harris, Teresa of Avila and so many more. It all began with the powerful Yes of Mary: “All generations shall call me blessed.”
Catholics were shocked to see a pro-abortion activist honored next to revered pro-life saint Mother Teresa, who famously called abortion the “greatest destroyer of peace today” in her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize lecture.
Harris, while serving in the Senate, maintained a 100 percent rating from the pro-abortion group NARAL for her abortion activism. She has twice voted against the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require abortion facilities to transfer babies born alive to a hospital. She has pledged to “codify” Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 pro-abortion Supreme Court ruling that essentially imposed abortion on all states. Before becoming the country’s Vice President, Harris, as attorney general of California, prosecuted pro-life journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt over their investigation of Planned Parenthood’s harvesting and trafficking of aborted baby body parts.
Catholic author and radio host Jesse Romero told LifeSiteNews that he was “horrified” by the post.
“Having Harris’ name next to St. Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of Avila and the Blessed Virgin Mary is blasphemous, scandalous and outrageous,” he said.
Romero said that when he first read the post, all he could think was, in the words of St. Paul, “O foolish Galatians, Who has bewitched you.” He called the post an “example of Catholic liberalism, modernism and a false ecumenism.”
Romero wrote to the creators of the Laudate app, warning them that they “went off the rails.”
“Kamala Harris is at odds with God’s Word on the two pillars that sustain civilization, the sanctity of innocent human life and natural marriage as given to us by God,” he told the app’s creators in a message obtained by LifeSiteNews.
“I am generally quite pleased with your reflections, they’re orthodox and well written, but this time you went off the rails. Please keep your political ideology to yourself and stick with giving us the Catholic saints as role models,” he added.
When Catholics pushed back online against the post, the reflection writer responded in a now-deleted post: “Kamala Harris is the Vice President of the United States of America. With your prayers, she may become St Kamara [sic] Harris (American) in the Roman Hagiography.” Harris is not Catholic.
Apple’s App store lists Andrzej Krawczyk as the seller of Laudate and Aycka Soft as the name of the company that created the app. LifeSiteNews reached out on two occasions to Laudate’s creators for comment but did not receive any responses.
In a Jan. 21 reflection on the Laudate app from Seek First Community, the reflection writer took issue with Catholics publicly opposing abortion.
I have arrived at a painful but liberating conclusion about Abortion and Prolife movement in America. I put it in question: Is Abortion a Satanic Trojan Horse in the Body of the Church in America designed by Satan to confuse and divide the Church so that to it is ineffective in the urgent work of Evangelization.
Read the sorry and embarrassing news today. (Thursday January 21st). Some Bishops are attacking other Bishops in the public arena all because of Abortion. Yet we sing Ubi Caritas (Where there is love, God is there). Is God still in the Church in America where fraternal charity is sacrificed on the altar of the so-called Prolife Cause?
(…)
Those who are chosen, called and anointed have a precise marching order by Jesus: (…) Remember that I am God. I don't need your help to unravel the demonic petulance of Abortion in the fullness of time.
In another post in January, the reflection writer praises people who have received the COVID vaccine, despite the fact that currently available COVID vaccines have been deemed morally problematic by numerous priests and bishops due to their connection with abortion.
“When you witness to what God has done for you, it is very powerful. If you received the COVID vaccine and witness to family and friends about how great you feel, you unleash the power of testimony, witnessing,” the writer stated.
The website Catholic Apps, which features a review of the Laudate app, recently warned visitors to the site about the problems with recent reflections hosted on the app.
“It seems that this app (Laudate) has had some questions about content recently,” the website stated. “This may have been an oversight from a writer, or even worded in a way that wasn’t the original intent. We all make mistakes, and error in judgments, this may have been an error, or it may not have been.”
A number of users of the Laudate app have, however, already decided to delete the app from their phones over the problematic reflections.
“Why in the heck is Kamala Harris considered a ‘fruit’ of Saint Angela Merici? She is a baby killer and supports abortion through live birth! Who owns/runs Laudate – I will be deleting this app and un-recommending this to friends immediately. Why taint an otherwise good app with this garbage?” wrote one user in a review hosted at Catholic Apps.
“I am so disappointed to discover that on January 27th, this app gave honor to Kamala Harris, the ‘vice president’ who is among the loudest in our country promoting and expanding the murder of unborn human lives! (…) Shame on you! This is a Catholic app – there is no room for mistakes of this magnitude! May God have mercy on you,” wrote another.
“Deleted and un-recommended. Posted to all my Catholic chat boards the disgusting decision to honor a pro-abortion politician as a fruit of St. Angela Merici. Trying to sneak that in – thinking real Catholics won’t notice? Shame on you! Does ‘catholics’ for choice run this app?” commented yet another.
Contact information for respectful communications:
Contact Laudate app creator online here
Email: [email protected]