American Catholic split identified in NCR

While describing some of the aspects of the pope’s recent encyclical, John Allen Jr. with the National Catholic Reporter offered the following on what constitutes the current divide among Roman Catholics is America:

“…Statements of principle, however, often fail to account for the gap between what we say and what we do. In that sense, Caritas in Veritate amounts to a direct challenge to the sociology of American Catholicism.

"Both at the grass roots and among the chattering classes, the American church is often described as split between its pro-lifers and its peace-and-justice contingent. More accurately, it's divided between those who see Catholic teaching as a useful tool to support their partisan preferences, whatever they may be, and those for whom the faith comes first and secular politics second.

…. (As a footnote, if I had the authority to decree a reading assignment for every Catholic in America, it would be Bill Bishop's 2008 book The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. His observations about broad trends in American society can be applied almost point-for-point to the internal life of the church.)

"Thus the question implicitly posed by Benedict's encyclical: Can the church in this country develop a new way of "breathing with both lungs," bringing its pro-life and peace-and-justice energies into greater alignment? Or are we fated to continue the present pattern of "Big Sort Catholicism"? ...

(Blogmaster's note:) We are headed for :"Big Sort Catholicism" that Allen didn't come near touching by identifying "pro-lifers vs. peace and justice contingent." The National Catholic Reporter, which clearly represents the so-called "peace and justice contingent," (cafeteria Catholics--pick and choose your doctrine) pulled out all the stops for Obama to insist that people can be proabortion and remain Roman Catholic. What baloney.

They don't want to know what the Bible says about abortion either. I side with the prolifers on this one (although I am no longer a Roman Catholic myself) and I know why the traditonal and sedevacanists Catholics are growing and will continue to grow. They realize that once you concede that murder is permissible at any level of life, it is permissible at all levels of life from infants to the elderly. Aside from belief in the true Gospel that Christ fully won (secured) the salvation of all who believe in him (which most Roman Catholics refuse to believe)...there is no issue more important than respect for life at all levels.