… From the desk of Lara Ketter, AGM Staff Writer

When I first heard the news that there actually existed Catholics who support abortion and Planned Parenthood, I was flabbergasted. Speechless. Astonished. Dumbfounded. Stunned. Blown away.

I’m not a cradle Catholic; I entered the fold during the Easter Vigil service in the spring of 2002, having spent several months in RCIA – the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults – to learn the ways of the Catholic faith. At Easter dinner a cake made by my family to celebrate this accomplishment stated, “Congrats on Becoming a Catlick.” My daughter, just two years old at the time, thought Catholic was Catlick, thus the adorable cake.

In the years since “becoming a Catlick” I took it as a forgone conclusion that every Catholic supports the pro-life cause, that every Catholic on planet Earth believes life begins at conception, and that all Catholics stand behind unborn babies.

And now I learn that even some priests support abortion.

Still flabbergasted.

And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a group called “Catholics for Choice.” On the home page of their website an article titled, “Catholics Show Sweet Support for Planned Parenthood” is accompanied by a picture of a cake emblazoned with this stunning statement: “Catholics Stand with Planned Parenthood.”

The article says: “Today, Catholics for Choice delivered cakes and messages of goodwill to women’s clinics on behalf of Catholic supporters, showing that only a small minority of Catholics agree with the extremist voices of the bishops on the question of abortion.” There’s a link to write a message of support to Planned Parenthood.

With my head spinning in shocked disbelief, I read that Catholics for Choice “was founded in 1973 to serve as a voice for Catholics who believe that the Catholic tradition supports a woman’s moral and legal right to follow her conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health.” They believe “that every individual must follow his or her own conscience ― and respect others’ right to do the same.”

Do you know what conscience means? Dictionary.com says conscience is “the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action.”

I’d bet my last dollar that if the unborn babies scheduled for abortions were able to follow their consciences, they’d feel it was right for them to be born. Just sayin’.

I have a friend who is unsure of the existence of God; she avoids church and religion like the great plague. However, she is a good person and says she follows her conscience; it’s working because she’s a fair, loving and generous woman.

But Catholics follow a religion. We believe in God. We believe that, along with conscience, God gave us a set of Commandments that we are to follow. These Commandments overrule our consciences. They are the written laws that we are to follow.

I’m thinking of the Commandment from Exodus that says: “You shall not murder.” Older versions of the Bible say, “Thou shalt not kill.” Murder. Kill. Both words mean a life is taken intentionally. Reading this as a Christian and Catholic, there’s nothing vague about this commandment. Notice there’s no definition of what murder or killing constitutes. There’s no asterisk with “except if the person isn’t born yet” in small letters at the bottom of the page. That’s because an explanation is unnecessary. If you kill a person, it’s wrong whether she is 12 weeks in the womb or 99 years out of the womb.

Jesus backs up the Commandments in his Sermon on the Mount when he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

Jesus also tells us, in his Sermon on the Mount, not to judge or we will be judged. Well, go ahead and judge me because I believe that anyone who calls himself a follower of Christ should believe in life from conception because all life is from God, no matter how small.

The Catholic Church is not shy in its support of the unborn. I’ve known this my whole life, even as a Methodist attending Sunday School in a tiny rural Kansas town.

This will sound harsh, but I think that any Catholic who claims to be pro-choice isn’t Catholic. I’ll take it a step further and say that any Christian who supports abortion is snubbing the Ten Commandments, and thus snubbing the wisdom of God.

This will upset those in the Christian community who support abortion, but read the Bible. Search your hearts. God is crystal clear on the subject. He gave us free will but he also gave us Commandments. “You shall not kill.” Period.

The pro-abortion community is feverish in proclamations that every single person has free will and the right to choose what happens to his or her body. Every single person, they say.

Well, except for the unborn.

Click HERE to listen to a debate between a Pro Life Catholic convert and a Pro Abortion “Catholic.”