In the only debate between Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) and former Congressman Robert Francis (Beto) O’Rourke (D), the Governor called out Beto on abortion:

Beto’s position is the most extreme because he not only supports abortion of a fully developed child to the very last second before birth, he’s even against providing medical care for a baby who survives an abortion. He is for unlimited abortion at taxpayer expense.

Beto called it a lie. “No one thinks that in the state of Texas!”, he said.

Well, folks, Beto is out of touch: this past July, every single Texas Democrat in Congress voted “aye” to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which allows abortion through the ninth month.

And Beto? In 2019 he publicly defended abortion until a baby’s due date minus one.

In fact, for many years, Beto has received a rating of 100% from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), which calls him “a proven champion for reproductive freedom.”

And “extreme”? Well, Beto’s platform doesn’t include the Communist Chinese position that once forced women to abort every child conceived after they had carried one to term.

Now that’s extreme.

So at least Beto’s not a Communist — but he is a Catholic, and the Catholic Church doesn’t endorse abortion at all — in fact, it teaches that abortion at any stage of pregnancy is murder.

And while that’s a problem for Beto, it’s a problem for his Catholic bishop back in El Paso as well. Because Canon Law — the Church’s legal code that’s centuries older than the U.S. Constitution — requires that El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz bar Beto from receiving Holy Communion.

And he hasn’t.

Meet Montezuma Mark

You’ve probably heard of Bishop Seitz. He won his 15 minutes of fame five years ago for attacking several national conservative politicians in the pages of USA Today. He was so mad, he admitted, that he called them “hypocrites” and “Pharisees.”

Wow. Were these a bunch of pro-abortion radicals defiantly defending Beto’s radical abortion stance?

No, they were nine pro-life State Attorneys General, plus the Governor of Idaho, who supported the enforcement of the Rule of Law regarding the millions of illegal aliens that Barack Obama had allowed into the country.

In fact, the group that Seitz targeted included his fellow Texan, Attorney General Ken Paxton, a strong advocate of enforcing the law across the board.

Paxton, who is not Catholic, has fought valiantly to defend Texans from the Coyote drug-gun-and-child traffickers who were bringing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to Texas every year. He’s also strongly pro-life.

Doesn’t matter. Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz wields his consecrated authority to brand Paxton a “Pharisee.”

Well, as the late Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker put it, “that door swings both ways.”

So when I was writing a story about Bishop Seitz for a Catholic newspaper a while back, I wondered, has he ever publicly criticized Beto’s 100% support of abortion?

First, I called Congressman O’Rourke at his Capitol Hill office, and had an engaging conversation with him about our shared interest in Latin America. When I brought up the issue of abortion, he said that Seitz had never criticized him for his position at all.

Then I contacted Bishop Seitz. He confirmed what Beto had told me — although he told me that he has spoken to him “privately” about it.

What about publicly?

Well, Seitz has appeared alongside Beto at big amnesty rallies, but has never criticized him publicly on abortion. And he’s never obeyed Canon Law and barred him from receiving Holy Communion, either.

Since leveling that USA Today broadside five years ago, Seitz has become a cult hero to the Left, defiantly leading illegal immigrants across the Rio Grande and savaging supporters of immigration law like Attorney General Paxton.

During the riots that ravaged the country two years ago, Seitz posed for a picture depicting him reverently praying in front of a Black Lives Matter placard. The photo got widespread news coverage, and before long, Seitz got a telephone call from Pope Francis cheering him on.

A year later Seitz wrote a pastoral letter roundly condemning the “savage” Spaniards who brought the Catholic faith to the Americas and destroyed the shrines of their pagan gods. He criticized the Conquistadores for their “deployment of white supremacy and cultural oppression as tools of economic ambition, imperial adventurism and political expansion.”

So much for Columbus Day!

It’s fair to ask His Excellency: wasn’t the cannibalism, torture, mass human sacrifice, and infanticide demanded by those gods pretty “savage”?

Well, for Montezuma Mark, the “racism” and “xenophobia” that prevails in the U.S. today is worse.

He even goes easy on today’s culture of Mexico’s Corruptos, where violence, corruption, terrorist gangs, and drugs prevail on every side. It’s quite curious that he should rhapsodize over the culture of the most dangerous country for priests in the Western Hemisphere.

Let’s face it. Seitz has staked out his territory on the Far Left, hating America and the “Pharisees” who defend her.

Seitz Rides To The Rescue

And what about Beto? He’s running against a sitting Governor, a fellow Catholic who is pro-life.

“The most precious freedom is life itself,” said Governor Abbott on July 29, 2021. “Our Creator endowed us with the right to life, but millions of children lose that right every year because of abortion. In Texas, we work to spare every child from the ravages of abortion, which is why I am proud to join my fellow governors in protecting the unborn.”

And while Beto joins Seitz at pro-amnesty rallies, Abbott speaks at pro-life rallies.

Texas Bishops have condemned Abbott for his stalwart defense of the Rule of Law, but have never condemned Beto’s support of abortion until birth.

In fact, Seitz goes even further: he insists that Catholics shouldn’t make such a big deal about abortion. “Many Christians have scandalously turned a blind eye to real breakdowns in solidarity and dehumanizing policies, including crackdowns on worker rights and voting rights, the slashing of social support for the poor and sick, racism, and the exploitation of immigrants and the environment,” he wrote five weeks before the 2020 election.

You read that right. In November 2019, America’s Catholic bishops vote to make abortion the “preeminent issue” in the 2020 elections. A year later, Seitz says “no way,” and cheers the illegals instead. A year after that, his brother bishops elect him as leader of their efforts to bring millions more illegal aliens across the border.

Why? Well, they’re secular NGOs, which receive over a billion dollars a year from the U.S. taxpayer. But they get no federal dollars at all to fight abortion.

As Ev Dirksen used to say, “a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

In this case, the money does all the talking.

 

Christopher Manion earned a Ph.D. in government from Notre Dame. For many years he was the staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, chaired by the late Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.