Sister Simone’s words captured with almost perfect clarity the bizarre moral inversion that has taken place among so many of the American Left, including the Catholic Left: moral absolutism on matters that should allow for prudence combined with near-infinite plasticity when it comes to fundamental moral norms.

Here is a woman who, because of her Catholic faith, embarked on a cross-country bus tour to proclaim Paul Ryan’s budget anathema — not just imprudent, mind you, but fundamentally incompatible with Catholic morals. Yet this same woman cannot bring herself to admit so much as the possibility that legal sanction for the intentional killing of innocent human beings might be unjust.