On Sunday morning, August 29, a group of about a dozen faithful Catholics stood silently outside Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine’s home church, St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, holding up signs drawing attention to Kaine’s persistent refusal to abide by his church’s teachings on abortion.
NBC affiliate WVIR-TV in Charlottesville, Virginia, and CBS affiliate WTVR-TV in Richmond reported that Kaine has attended St. Elizabeth’s for about 30 years. The demonstrators holding up signs outside Senator Kaine’s church were quick to point out that his voting record contradicts the Catholic faith on issues of abortion and same-sex “marriage.”
“He is not America’s dad at all,” organizer Frances Bouton told the media. “If people just scratched the surface. He’s really, all I can say, is evil.”
“You are a CINO, you are a Catholic in name only,” Bouton said in an open statement to Kaine.
“Tim Kaine, quit lying that you are not pro abortion, because you are pro abortion,” she added.
Kaine was not at Sunday’s Mass.
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The WTVR report noted:
In the past Kaine supported additional restrictions on abortion and said he was personally opposed to the procedure. However, the senator now has a 100-percent voting record on Planned Parenthood’s 2016 congressional scorecard.
The pro-life website LifeNews.com said in a report that Kaine “is on record as trying to have it both ways — saying he is both a ‘traditional Catholic’ and a strong supporter of abortion.” LifeNews previously quoted Kaine as saying he is a “strong supporter of Roe v. Wade.”
LifeNews also reported that Kaine recently cosponsored S. 217, the “Women’s Health Protection Act of 2015,” which pro-lifers have called the “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth Act.” The bill would nullify nearly all existing state and federal limitations on regulation of abortion, and prohibit states from enacting meaningful pro-life laws in the future.
Though it is nearly impossible to understand how any politician supporting such legislation could describe themselves as being “personally pro-life,” that is exactly what Kaine has said he is in the past.
One protester outside Kaine’s church held up a sign reading: “You can’t be Catholic and pro-abortion” — a phrase that has been frequently used by the Virginia-based pro-life organization American Life League.
While the Catholic hierarchy in Virginia, led by Bishop Francis DiLorenzo, has so far been silent about Kaine’s contrary stand on life, Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, posted a message on Facebook that was so popular it received over 1,000 shares. It read:
VP Pick, Tim Kaine, a Catholic?
Democratic VP choice, Tim Kaine, has been widely identified as a Roman Catholic. It is also reported that he publicly supports “freedom of choice” for abortion, same-sex marriage, gay adoptions, and the ordination of women as priests. All of these positions are clearly contrary to well-established Catholic teachings; all of them have been opposed by Pope Francis as well.
Senator Kaine has said, “My faith is central to everything I do.” But apparently, and unfortunately, his faith isn’t central to his public, political life.
As was noted in an article posted by The New American recently, Father Thomas Petri, a Catholic priest in Washington, D.C., was very clear about Kaine’s failure to adhere to his church’s position on life in a tweet: “Senator @timkaine: Do us both a favor. Don’t show up in my communion line. I take Canon 915 seriously. It’d be embarrassing for you & for me.”
Canon 915 forbids priests from administering Holy Communion to those who are excommunicated or obstinately persevere in grave sin.
Most parishioners at St. Elizabeth Church are apparently not fazed by Kaine’s pro-abortion position, since they gave him a standing ovation at Mass following the announcement that he had become Hillary Clinton’s running mate. Kaine’s pastor, Father Jim Arsenault, praised the nominee in an NPR interview, saying: “He really extends a hand to help people and is very compassionate, approachable, available and friendly.”
Clinton’s stand on abortion is even more extreme than Kaine’s, making one wonder why he would agree to be her running mate if he had any pro-life sentiments at all. Life News noted:
Clinton has said in various interviews that an unborn child just hours before birth has no Constitutional rights. In February, Clinton defended the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure. She also said she wants to overturn the Hyde Amendment and force taxpayers to pay for abortions, including late-term abortions.
The writer of that article noted that Kaine will not abide by either his oath to uphold the Constitution or his religion, and pointed out that the vice presidential nominee has the lowest score in The New American’s Freedom Index (which rates members of Congress on how faithfully their votes adhere to the Constitution). Kaine’s cumulative score for his tenure in the Senate is a paltry one percent. The one exception in which he aligned himself with the Constitution was on January 28, 2015 when he voted against an amendment to remove exemptions for fracking and natural gas storage from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The article noted:
On a range of bills dealing with everything from national security to federal involvement in housing to the environment to immigration to taxes to forcing employers to fund contraception, Kaine has voted the exact opposite of the Constitution 99 percent of the time.
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