My colleague Fr Shay Cullen has devoted nearly 40 years of his life to working with children and women who have been sexually and physically abused and has received international recognition for his work.

However, he seems to be unaware that the 'first thing' Mr Obama wants to do as president of the USA is to get rid of laws in every one of the 50 states of the USA that are restrictive of abortion, the ultimate form of child abuse, and of the abuse of women. He also wants to re-introduce the 'right' to so-called 'partial-birth abortion', which involves murdering a child in the process of birth.

He describes Mr Obama as an 'African-American'. This is not inaccurate but is rather vague. Supposing his father had been from the Philippines would he - and so many others - have described him as 'Asian-American' or 'Filipino-American'? Mr Obama is much more accurately described as a 'Kenyan-American', as Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, for example, were described as 'Irish-American'. He could be also described as a 'European-American', since he was raised by his European-American mother and her mother, the latter dying just days before his election as president.

The term 'African-American' is normally used of those descended from slaves, whose ancestors were kidnapped from west Africa centuries ago, before modern states emerged in that continent. Mr Obama's father was from Kenya, which is in east Africa and has no historical connection whatever with slavery in the Americas.

The term 'people of color' is one of those oh so 'politically correct' but meaningless terms.

Father Cullen seems to be unaware that there has been no legal discrimination on the grounds of colour in the USA for decades now. Yes, the country has a shameful past in this regard. The election of Mr Obama may indeed help to heal some of the wounds of that past. But the two most recent secretaries of state, appointed by President George W. Bush, were African-Americans, the first such to hold this, the highest non-elective office in the USA.

Below is a column I wrote that was published in Negros Times on 10-11 November.

Under
the Acacia

By
Father Seán Coyle

9,000,000
Black Americans Denied Vote in US Elections

The
writer edits www.misyononline.com and
has a blog at www.bangortobobbio.blogspot.com
. You may contact him at undertheacacia@gmail.com

Because of a decision
of the US Supreme Court in 1973, more than 9,000,000 Black Americans were
denied a vote in the recent elections in the USA. These are the Black children
aborted between 1973 and 1990 who would have been of voting age on November 4.
37 percent of abortions in the USA are of Black children even though Black
Americans constitute only 13.4 percent of the overall population.

22 percent of abortions
are of the children of white women and 34 percent of Hispanics and 8 percent to
women of other races. These are the statistics of the pro-abortion Guttmacher
Institute Alan F. Guttmacher was president of the Planned Parenthood Federation
of America.

On July 17, 2007, Senator Obama
addressed a Planned Parenthood Action Fund meeting. He articulated what he saw
as the most important issue in the presidential election: “With one more vacancy on the (Supreme) Court, we could be
looking at a majority hostile to a woman’s fundamental right to choose for the
first time since Roe versus Wade and that is what is at stake in this election.”
He spoke of his ongoing efforts to keep abortion legal:  “I have worked on these issues for decades now. 
I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught
Constitutional Law. Not simply as a case about privacy but as part of the
broader struggle for women’s equality.”

In answer to the question, “What would you do at
the federal level not only to ensure access to abortion but to make sure that
the judicial nominees that you will inevitably be able to pick are true to the
core tenets of Roe v. Wade?” Mr. Obama said, “Well, the first thing I’d do as
president is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.”

The website of Priests for Life, www.priestsforlife.org , says that the
Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) goes beyond Roe v. Wade. “It would establish
abortion on demand with no restrictions whatsoever as the law of all 50 states.

“FOCA, which has been introduced in Congress
since the 1990s but is now regaining attention, would wipe out all state laws
on abortion, including parental notification or consent acts, public funding
restrictions, 24-hour waiting period requirements, and women’s right to know
measures, whereby a woman must be told of the risks caused by abortion and
about the development of her unborn child. If the next Congress has a
pro-abortion majority, a pro-abortion president could sign FOCA into law,
eliminating 35 years of laws that have reduced the number of abortions in the
United States.”

Priests for Life also points out that “a
pro-abortion Congress and a pro-abortion President could repeal the federal ban
on partial-birth abortion passed and signed into law by President Bush in 2003
and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007. Earlier versions were either vetoed by
President Clinton or struck down by the Supreme Court.” President George W.
Bush’s two appointees, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., and Chief Justice
John G. Roberts, were among the five who voted against four to uphold the ban
on partial-birth abortion, which is really infanticide, as the baby is killed
during the actual process of birth.

It is generally agreed that George W. Bush hasn’t
been one of the greater presidents in the history of the USA but he has left
the potential legacy of a Supreme Court that could overrule the utterly evil
Roe v. Wade decision. Obama appointees – and he almost certainly will have at
least one, since Associate Justice John Paul Stevens is 89 – could bring the
USA further back into the Dark Ages for a generation or two.

The recently passed Abortion Law Reform Act of
the State of Victoria, Australia, in the words of Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart,
“requires health professionals with a conscientious objection to abortion to
refer patients seeking an abortion to other health professionals who do not
have such objections. It also requires health professionals with a
conscientious objection to abortion to perform an abortion in whatever is
deemed an ‘emergency’”. In other words, legislators chose to deny doctors,
nurses and pharmacists the choice not to be involved in killing without
becoming criminals. It is a crime in Victoria to dock – “cut” - a dog’s tail
and now a crime for a doctor or nurse not to be involved in an abortion in
certain circumstances.

The UK recently passed a law allowing the use of
hybrid human-animal embryos for research.

The USA, the UK and Australia are three countries
with a Christian tradition but that have become aggressively secular and
anti-life, though politicians in the USA invoke God on their side, whatever it
is, while, in the words of an aide to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
“We don’t do God”.

The election of Barack Obama as President of the
USA, may help that country move beyond its shameful past of slavery, even
though the new occupant of the White House, unlike his wife and children, isn’t
descended from slaves. His father was from Kenya, in East Africa, while the
slaves were taken from West Africa. I can understand the euphoria of so many
older Black Americans who have experienced the legal discrimination that no
longer exists in seeing a man with darker skin being elected president.

But I wonder how many of those who are moved by this
event, which is undoubtedly significant, ask themselves why nine million
descendants of slaves from West Africa were denied a vote on November 4 because
of the pro-abortion policies that Mr. Obama has so vigorously dedicated his
life to. When will they see that “pro-choice” means “no choice”?

++++

Here is a statement of the US Catholic Bishops issued yesterday, 12 November. I have highlighted some parts.

STATEMENT of the President of the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops
"If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do
its builders labor; if the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the
watchman keep vigil." (Psalm 127, vs. 1)

The Bishops of the Catholic
Church in the United States welcome this moment of historic transition and look
forward to working with President-elect Obama and the members of the new
Congress for the common good of all. Because of the Church's history and the
scope of her ministries in this country, we want to continue our work for
economic justice and opportunity for all; our efforts to reform laws around
immigration and the situation of the undocumented; our provision of better
education and adequate health care for all, especially for women and children;
our desire to safeguard religious freedom and foster peace at home and abroad.
The Church is intent on doing good and will continue to cooperate gladly with
the government and all others working for these goods.

The fundamental
good is life itself, a gift from God and our parents. A good state protects the
lives of all. Legal protection for those members of the human family waiting to
be born in this country was removed when the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade
in 1973. This was bad law. The danger the Bishops see at this moment is that a
bad court decision will be enshrined in bad legislation that is more radical
than the 1973 Supreme Court decision itself.

In the last Congress, a
Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) was introduced that would, if brought forward in
the same form today, outlaw any "interference" in providing abortion at will. It
would deprive the American people in all fifty states of the freedom they now
have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry. FOCA
would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their
tax dollars. It would counteract any and all sincere efforts by government and
others of good will to reduce the number of abortions in our
country.

Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be
outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and
protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. Abortion clinics would be
deregulated. The Hyde Amendment restricting the federal funding of abortions
would be abrogated. FOCA would have lethal consequences for prenatal human
life.

FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of
conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions
do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children. It
would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It
would be an evil law that would further divide our country, and the Church
should be intent on opposing evil.

On this issue, the legal protection of
the unborn, the bishops are of one mind with Catholics and others of good will.
They are also pastors who have listened to women whose lives have been
diminished because they believed they had no choice but to abort a baby.
Abortion is a medical procedure that kills, and the psychological and spiritual
consequences are written in the sorrow and depression of many women and men. The
bishops are single-minded because they are, first of all,
single-hearted.

The recent election was principally decided out of
concern for the economy, for the loss of jobs and homes and financial security
for families, here and around the world. If the election is misinterpreted
ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by President-elect
Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve.
Abortion kills not only unborn children; it destroys constitutional order and
the common good, which is assured only when the life of every human being is
legally protected. Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive
orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be
seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion.

This
statement is written at the request and direction of all the Bishops, who also
want to thank all those in politics who work with good will to protect the lives
of the most vulnerable among us. Those in public life do so, sometimes, at the
cost of great sacrifice to themselves and their families; and we are grateful.
We express again our great desire to work with all those who cherish the common
good of our nation. The common good is not the sum total of individual desires
and interests; it is achieved in the working out of a common life based upon
good reason and good will for all.

Our prayers accompany President-elect
Obama and his family and those who are cooperating with him to assure a smooth
transition in government. Many issues demand immediate attention on the part of
our elected "watchman." (Psalm 127) May God bless him and our country.

+++

I am absolutely certain that Father Cullen wants none of the evil that Mr Obama wishes to promote. I'm afraid that Father Shay, like many others, has been hoodwinked by the countless media persons who cannot see beyond the colour of Mr Obama's skin.

Being one of those who kept track of the Obama-McCain campaign, I tried to know even just a little about them. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of one from the other, I just came to the point of praying that may the best man win. I see them both as extremists, one that is too eager for change vs. one that is too conservative.Well honestly, I was one of those who got attracted with Obama but when I learned about the 'pro-abortion' I was so disappointed. I always stand for Pro-Life. But undeniably, Obama has also something good in him. I just hope and pray that he'll do things righteously.In one of the things I heard, it was cited from one journalists that Filipinos favor McCain because maybe we're not yet done with colonial mentality. I just don't like this line of explaining things. I am a Filipino and I believe that Filipinos, just like the rest of the world has a critical mind to be proud of. And to think, many Filipinos also favored Obama. Well I think, it's better to respect everybody's right to vote. (No more foul talks, please.) Let's just hope and pray that the present government will be guided by the Holy Spirit as it brings change for the betterment of its country, and later of the world.God bless us all!(",)

Here is an extract from a column in the parish bulletin of St Mary's Parish, Greenville, South Carolina, by parish priest Fr Jay Scott Newman on 9 November:

In response to this, (the election of President Obama) I am obliged by my duty as your shepherd to make two observations:

1. Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life
alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil,
and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full
communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law.
Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and
unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest
they eat and drink their own condemnation.

2. Barack Obama, although we must always and everywhere disagree
with him over abortion, has been duly elected the next President of the
United States, and after he takes the Oath of Office next January 20th
he will hold legitimate authority in this nation. For this reason, we
are obliged by Scriptural precept to pray for him and to cooperate with
him whenever conscience does not bind us otherwise.

Clearly, Father Newman's position is somewhat different from that of the priest in upstate New York referred to by Lucille.You can read Father Newman's full column, newspaper reports on his column, and a subsequent interview with him here.

I wouldn't see 46,000,000 + + + legal abortions in the USA since 1973 as being less important than the economy, important though that is.