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John Zmirak, senior editor at The Stream and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) should be excommunicated from the Catholic Church following New York’s passage of a law codifying abortion as a “fundamental right” across the Empire State.
Zmirak offered his remarks in a Tuesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonightwith hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
Mansour described Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s response to Cuomo’s signing of New York’s latest abortion legislation as tepid.
“It’s not surprising when you consider who the bishops are and their lack of a spine,” said Mansour. “But you’d figure that there would be some attempt to chastise these Catholic politicians who run on their Catholicism, these Catholic Democrats who voted for this horrible thing that is in such obvious violation of their Catholic faith. But no. Nothing.”
Zmirak noted how demographic change resulting from immigration is shifting American attitudes toward abortion.
“[The Right to Life Party] had a slot on the ballot [in New York] up until the late 1980s,” recalled Zmirak. “The pro-life movement was actually quite strong in New York until the last 15 years, and that’s what’s really interesting to me. The pro-life cause was actually 50-50 in New York until quite recently, and what changed it was immigration. What’s changing it everywhere is immigration.”
Zmirak continued, “People coming from Latin America who, while they might be pro-life in their personal views, they are natural Democrats. They are natural members of the party that’s going to give them money from the government.”
Zmirak highlighted the Catholic Church’s role in undermining America’s pro-life movement via its support for the status quo of immigration.
“What upsets me the most about the Catholic bishops is that they support mass immigration for their own reasons,” said Zmirak. “That makes it impossible to protect the lives of unborn children in one state after another state after another state, and Cardinal Dolan in New York City is a big part of this.”
Mansour said, “Cardinal Dolan has decided not to even chastise Gov. Cuomo for signing this, or the other politicians in New York who run as Catholics and wave that around, and use their Catholic faith when it suits them, but then totally violate the central tenet of the Catholic faith: this respect for life.”
Zmirak replied, “I’m a firm believer in the phrase, ‘Follow the money.’ The U.S. Catholic bishops get 40 percent — four-zero percent of their money — from the federal government, from federal contracts to serve mostly immigrants. Open borders, immigration, the welfare state are all the economic bread and butter of the Catholic bishops.”
Zmirak added, “If the Democrats were to really turn on the Catholic bishops, they could bankrupt them overnight, and the Catholic bishops — not all of them, just 90 percent of them — are much more worried about the financial bottom line than they are about unborn children.”
Zmirak continued, “Add into that 40 percent, four-zero percent, of Catholics born in America leave the church because the corruption, the gay takeover of the priesthood, the child abuse, the lackadaisical teaching of doctrine, all the things that make the Catholic Church just like mainline Protestant organizations that are dying like the Episcopal Church.”
Zmirak went on, “These things are all real, and they’re killing the Church. But the bishops are replacing us. They’re replacing native-born Catholics with immigrants. One out of five American Catholics is born overseas, virtually all of them in Latin America.”
Zmirak maintained, “The bishops have a choice. We can do really difficult reforms that tick a lot of people off and anger leftist elites against us in order to maintain and keep the faith of native-born Catholics and protect unborn children, or we can let the federal government pay our bills and the federal government fill our pews. Guess which one they’ve picked?”
Mansour asked, “Let me ask you point-black. Do you think that Gov. Cuomo should be excommunicated for signing this bill into law? Does it warrant it?”
Zmirak replied, “I think not only Governor Cuomo, but everyone who voted for him deserves excommunication. … I think New York state should be placed under interdict, where no sacraments are offered, all the churches are closed. We are not going to bother to pretend there is a Catholic Church in New York state, because you people have chosen human sacrifice — infant sacrifice — that is your sacrament. Go ahead and enjoy it. We’re not offering you ours.”
Zmirak added ,”By the way, that is a historic thing. The Catholic Church has placed entire countries under interdict in past centuries for much more trivial things than partial-birth abortion. … During the Middle Ages — it is part of the Church — if a country has abandoned the most basic tenets of morality, we’re not going to pretend that we can minister to you. We’re going to take away the sacraments until you people come back. I think that’s a completely legitimate thing, and I’m a native New Yorker, and this breaks my heart, but I don’t think there should be a Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. I think the cathedral should be closed on that day and draped in black.”
Zmirak recalled, “Back in 1960, when bigoted, racist Catholics were trying to promote segregation in Louisiana, the Archdiocese of New Orleans excommunicated them to show them that racism was wrong and the Catholic Church will play no part in it. If Cardinal Dolan thinks that killing babies is even remotely as important as segregation, he will do the same. If not, he is winking and nodding and collaborating in profound unspeakable evil.”
Mansour remarked, “As faithful Catholics we welcome all these investigations by attorneys general. I would rather have a smaller, poorer, and holier church than a large corrupt one with a lot of money.”
Zmirak agreed, “What we need to realize is that there are as many orthodox Catholics in the United States as there are orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, which is to say not very many. We don’t need 200 bishops. We don’t need this massive $400 million budget for the bishops — half of it government money. The Catholic Church has to shrink down to its real size, which is small, and then it can really be itself.”
Zmirak continued, “But if it’s going to keep pretending that it’s 30 percent of the population, it’s going to have to keep faking it, and keep making compromises with the enemies of life and the most fundamental moral values.”
Zmirak concluded, “Remember, when the Catholic Church was powerful and good and strong was when it was a small somewhat despised minority. The moment we started getting popular and fashionable and rich, we became unspeakably corrupt.”
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