Mirror, Mirror

Among the newly-installed President Obama's first acts has been to lift the ban on US foreign-aid funding for groups that facilitate abortion. This was quite predictable,as it follows a pattern of recent history going back to Reagan, of Republican presidents imposing the ban, and their Democratic successors lifting it. Also predictable was reaction from Certain Quarters -- like the Vatican, as represented by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life:

....the arrogance of someone who believes they are right....

What is important is to know how to listen, without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death. If this is one of the first acts of President Obama, then with all due respect it seems to me that we are heading toward disappointment even more quickly than we thought

The irony of a dogmatic church complaining about someone else's "arrogance" and "ideological visions"....needs no further comment from me. And as for "life and death": this is the same Church whose bizarre views on sex and reproduction have almost certainly worsened the AIDS crisis in Latin America and Africa.

I think we should take up a collection to buy a bunch of mirrors, to be installed in the Vatican. They really need them over there.