H/T: Patterico.

Pope Benedict, underscoring the Vatican’s ruling on an issue that divides Americans, told U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday that Catholic politicians and legislators cannot back abortion rights.

See where MSNBC slipped?

“an issue that divides Americans”

An issue.  They finally get it right.  It wasn’t George W. Bush that was dividing us, it was issues.  It’s just that when the right (let’s give W the benefit of the doubt on that for the moment), it seems we are more divided because The Left can’t stop screaming and wailing and whining until a Democrat wins.

Anyway, the Vatican statement is getting lots of blog play, but I think Ed Morrissey summed it up best: “Even MS-NBC can’t spin this.” I also like the title of Rocco Palmo’s post: “For Madame Speaker, a Talking-To.” Pelosi released a statement in which she said she was proud to share with Benedict a picture of her family on a former papal visit.  That statement was seized upon by the alliterative Anchoress: Pope Punks Pelosi Pic.

Public Domain Image via Wikipedia

Most recently, I saw this type of criticism at the blog Crime & Federalism in a post by blogger Mike titled “Pope to Jesus: Kiss Off!

There are millions of orphans currently suffering. Many of them will suffer horrible abuse at the hands of foster parents. In other countries, they will be sold into slavery. These children exist, and if someone doesn’t help them, they will suffer. That much is a constant.

Yet, according to the Catholic Church, only marriage between a man and woman is moral because it leads to a married couple having children.

Has Christianity become so perverted that not adopting (having children rather than adopting them is an conscious act) children is more moral than ending human suffering?

What has happened to the teachings of Christ?

***

Children are great. And children suffering is a horrible injustice. A church that truly taught Christ’s message would encourage adoption over procreation.

Yet the Pope is more concerned with adults entering into consensual sexual relations than he is with children being sold into sexual slavery. Yes, when you choose not to adopt, you make it more likely that a child will suffer. You are culpable.

It’s a strange world we live in, when even the Pope has missed the basic message of the New Testament. He’s more worried about gay adults than he is with suffering children.

(The omitted portion in the middle contended that having children is a selfish thing to do.)

I think that people who tend to criticize Catholics and other Christians for concentrating on abortion and same sex marriage while supposedly “ignoring” other problems fail to recognize why it appears that the Church is “preoccupied.” There are strong movements to legitimize both practices (and in the case of abortion, an already successful movement). It is natural for the Church to assemble its forces to counterattack. And given that both sides have mobilized in political and legal circles, it is natural that you would hear the most about these issues.

I suspect that for most such critics, this type of argument is not made to actually further the fight against poverty, or slavery, or whatever other “ignored” issue is pointed out, but to try to shame the Church into abandoning the battlefield on the high-profile issues so the “progressives” can proceed unopposed (good luck with that).

And just who is consumed with these issues, anyway? Stop pushing abortion and gay marriage from the left, and the Christian right will have nothing to push back against. In other words, Christian activism on these issues is largely reactive, not proactive.

Why on earth someone like blogger Mike would assume that because the Church actively fights vociferous proponents of legalizing and legitimizing practices that are immoral in the eyes of the Church, it “doesn’t care” about other injustices? Because he doesn’t see it on the news? There are millions of Christians in this country alone that give their time and money to fight poverty, homelessness, addiction, domestic violence, etc., and more overseas that fight violence, slavery, forced prostitution, and other evils.

A similar, but more thoughtful and less insulting version of the point was made by CNN’s Roland S. Martin (right). Apparently a professing Christian, he posted a column to his website last year titled “Christians: It’s time to take back the faith”:

If abortion and gay marriage are a part of the Christian agenda, I have no issue with that. Those are moral issues that should be of importance to people of the faith, but the agenda should be much, much broader.

Okay, so far, so good.

I’m looking for the day when Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Joyce Meyer, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Dr. James Kennedy, Rod Parsley, President Bush’s “Patriot Pastors,” and Rick Warren will sit at the same table as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Cynthia Hale, Eddie L. Long, James Meek, Fred Price, Emmanuel Cleaver, and Floyd Flake to establish a call to arms on racism, AIDS, police brutality, a national health care policy and our sorry education system.

Putting aside the question of what the hell Jackson and Sharpton would do if they couldn’t cry racism all the time — and questioning Martin’s placement of Rick Warren with more conservative figures — I’m trying to imagine the common ground Martin thinks these folks might come to.

Which brings me to the disparate treatment of the Religious Left and Religious Right. But that post is for another day.

Clearly, there’s no connection between this “art” and two parts of her body: her heart or her brain.

Is she going to keep the pieces indefinitely so when she eventually has children she can introduce them to their artistic siblings?

This is simply beyond sick. But things will, unbelievably and undoubtedly, get worse. In fact, I was going to title this post “This is where you end up,” but then I realized we probably aren’t anywhere near the end.

Allahpundit doubts this is real, and has some commenters who say its not even medically possible. Even if its not real, the sad thing is that its totally believable.

H/T: Ace — who, as usual, manages to make some fun of a dreadful situation.

UPDATE: Looks like Allahpundit was right, though nobody’s sure yet, it seems. Ace and Hot Air are both linking to a story in the New York Sun:

“Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art,” a Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said. “She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.”

Ms. Klasky went on to suggest that Yale would not have permitted a project of the sort described in the student newspaper. “Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.”

Well, no kidding, if you’re a decent human being. The problem is, you can no longer assume that of those in the faculties and administrations of American universities. This is the answer to anyone who might find it amusing that right-wingers bought into the story.

The fact that the artist merely said she was going to do this instead of actually doing it doesn’t mitigate matters much for me. She still used the same sick scenario — she just packaged it as a performance art piece instead of a physical art piece. Still twisted, if you ask me.

I don’t think I would have titled this post any differently or labeled it differently if I had known it was performance art in the beginning.

UPDATE (4/19/08): The student is saying that the University’s denial is a lie.  Now she claims she used a needle-less syringe to inject sperm and an herbal abortifacient to induce miscarriages, but isn’t sure if she was ever really pregnant.  At this point, it really doesn’t matter how the story comes out.  She’s twisted no matter how you look at it.