As expected, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, has publicly condemned the appointment of his most famous parishioner, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, to head the Dept. of Health and Human Services. Last spring, Naumann publicly told Sebelius not to take Communion in the archdiocese.

Writing in his weekly column in the archdiocese’s paper, the Leaven, Naumann says: “The appointment of Governor Sebelius as the secretary of HHS concerns me on many levels. With her history of support for legalized abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, it is troubling the important influence that she will have on shaping health care policies for our nation.

I am also concerned personally for Governor Sebelius. Her appointment as secretary for HHS places her in a position where she will have to make many decisions that will in all probability continue her personal involvement in promoting legalized abortion and her cooperation in this intrinsic evil.

I am also concerned that the appointment of Governor Sebelius places another Catholic supporting legalized abortion in a prominent national position. She joins Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and unfortunately a host of Catholic senators and members of the House of Representatives who support legalized abortion, contrary to the clear and consistent teaching of their church. It saddens me that so many Catholics, to gain political advancement, have chosen to compromise their Catholic faith by their failure to defend the most fundamental of all human rights – the right to life”

Naumann closes by citing the play “A Man for All Seasons,” which portrays Catholic martyr St. Thomas More’s refusal to sign off on King Henry VIII’s takeover of the Church of England.

In real life, More, as Lord Chancellor of England, ordered heretics burned at the stake.