PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, January 21, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Although President Obama was met with praise for his recent heartfelt speech memorializing the victims of the Tucson shooting tragedy, one Catholic bishop says the lofty sentiments left him cold because of the president’s attitude toward another, unmentioned group of victims.
In an opinion piece for the Jan 29 edition of the Rhode Island Catholic, Providence bishop Thomas Tobin reflected upon his reaction to Obama’s words earlier this month as the nation mourned the victims of the shooting that killed six and injured fourteen, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Despite Obama’s moving words, Tobin said that he “sensed there was something missing; there was something that left me cold, unimpressed and unmoved.”
“The problem, at least for me, is that President Obama’s persistent and willful promotion of abortion renders his compassionate gestures and soaring rhetoric completely disingenuous.”
Tobin noted that he agreed with those who would object that abortion is not the only moral issue in the world; however, he said, “it is the most important.”
Recalling President Obama’s history of aggressive support for the legalized killing of unborn children, the bishop confessed that “abortion policy is the prism through which I view everything this president says and does.”
“The full accounting of President Obama’s track record on abortion goes on for eight typed pages, a very sad and discouraging litany. The net effect, though, is that President Obama’s shameful record on abortion leaves his touching tribute and appeal to goodness in Tucson – and other expressions of compassion – sterile and meaningless.
“As he stood on the stage in Tucson, he was a prophet without credentials; his speech, a song without a soul.”
Quoting the president’s words, Tobin pondered how Obama’s praise of childhood innocence, embodied in 9-year-old shooting victim Christina Taylor Green, clashed with his disregard for even smaller children put to death every day in the womb.
“I can’t help but ask, respectfully, ‘Mr. President, why can’t you see our other children – so curious, so trusting, so energetic and full of magic, and so deserving of our love – in all of the unborn children who didn’t live because of our nation’s embrace of the abortion option?’” Tobin asked.
Click here to view Bishop Tobin’s column in the Rhode Island Catholic.