Michael Moore, the left-wing American film-maker, has claimed in a recent television interview to be"an unapologetic Christian"and said that
"we'll be judged according to how we treat the least among us".Following Mr Moore's interview, Dr Austen Ivereigh, former director of public affairs to Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, claims in yesterday's Guardian that Mr Moore is
"a committed Catholic".Dr Ivereigh also claims that Mr Moore's latest critique of capitalism is based on the principles of Pope Leo XIII's (pictured) encyclical Rerum Novarum. Neither Mr Moore nor Dr Ivereigh make any mention of Mr Moore's ardent support for abortion. To quote but one example of Mr Moore's pro-abortion writings: in July 2000 Mr Moore wrote that:
"About the only reason I voted for [Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton] was because of [their support for abortion]".Neither do Mr Moore nor Dr Ivereigh mention the Catholic Church's historic upholding of the right to life. In the same year as Rerum Novarum (1891), Leo XIII wrote:
"Clearly, divine law, both that which is known by the light of reason and that which is revealed in Sacred Scripture, strictly forbids anyone, outside of public cause [JS: e.g. war], to kill or wound a man unless compelled to do so in self-defence."In the encyclical Centesimus Annus marking the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II condemned
"the scandal of abortion".It is not for nothing that automatic excommunication is the penalty for procuring an abortion, and that Holy Communion is (sometimes) denied to politicians who vote for legal abortion. As Mr Moore rightly says, "we'll be judged according to how we treat the least among us". Are not the unborn "the least among us"?
Dr Ivereigh's description of Mr Moore as "a committed Catholic" reminds me of the constant descriptions in the media of Cherie Blair as a "devout Catholic", despite Mrs Blair's opposition to Catholic teaching on sexual ethics and her endorsement of pro-abortion organisations. It also reminds me of the constant descriptions of Tony Blair's "conversion to Catholicism", even though he refuses to repudiate his anti-life political record, and attacks papal teaching on homosexuality, telling the Church it must change its "entrenched attitudes" to homosexuality.
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