{"id":514,"date":"2009-06-01T11:17:37","date_gmt":"2009-06-01T11:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html"},"modified":"2009-06-01T11:17:37","modified_gmt":"2009-06-01T11:17:37","slug":"george-tiller-portrait-of-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html","title":{"rendered":"George Tiller: Portrait of a…serial killer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GeorgeYou fill in the blanks. And many are, with varying answers. Here’s Bill Donohue’s take<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

“The Catholic League unequivocally condemns the killing of serial killer, Dr. George Tiller.” <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Okay…Donohue goes on to condemn what he sees as the “politicization” of the killing by liberals, including those linking to the medley video of Bill O’Reilly<\/strong><\/a> labeling “Tiller the Baby Killer” as a hit man who charges $5,000 to execute a baby. The usual back-and-forth, I guess. Bill concludes with this, however:<\/p>\n

\n

“Perhaps the ultimate politicization is the decision by U.S. Attorney Eric Holder ordering federal marshals to protect ‘other appropriate people and facilities around the nation’.”<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Huh?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile at PoliticsDaily, Melinda Henneberger<\/strong><\/a>, a pro-life Catholic, has one answer from Tiller’s lawyer, Dan Monnat:<\/p>\n

\n

“It’s really, really tragic,” Monnat said in a phone interview. “Despite the fact that his clinic had been bombed and despite the fact that he’d been shot before, and put on trial…he was always willing to get back up the next morning and serve his patients, who were his first concern. He’d had patients move in with him and his wife until they could deliver. You can’t imagine a more dedicated professional, and his view — Why did he persist? — was, “If I’m not there to do it, who else will do it?” There was only one other clinic in the country doing this; all the rest have been scared away by protesters and terrorists.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet he was never really afraid, Monnat said — or never showed it, anyway. “I never detected fear in him,” he said. “He knew what he was doing was morally right, and right under the Constitution.” He drove a custom-made bullet-proof SUV, had an elaborate security system at his clinic, security around the clock and usually, a bodyguard at his side. His family never expressed fear either, his lawyer said. “He had a wife of 45 years who’s always supported him, and three daughters and a son who were behind him 100 percent.” Now that the worst has happened, Monnat said, his family’s greatest hope is this: “They don’t want this to be politicized.” Kind of amazing that after suffering this kind of loss, they still think that’s a possibility.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Witchita, Monnat said, “the whole town is grieving for a man who stood up for what he knew was right and who stood up for women. He was the 100-percent real deal, committed to rights that are not very popular with a lot of people.”<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You fill in the blanks. And many are, with varying answers. Here’s Bill Donohue’s take: “The Catholic League unequivocally condemns the killing of serial killer, Dr. George Tiller.” Okay…Donohue goes on to condemn what he sees as the “politicization” of the killing by liberals, including those linking to the medley video of Bill O’Reilly labeling “Tiller the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic","category-church","category-history","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nGeorge Tiller: Portrait of a...serial killer? - Pontifications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"George Tiller: Portrait of a...serial killer? - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You fill in the blanks. And many are, with varying answers. Here’s Bill Donohue’s take: “The Catholic League unequivocally condemns the killing of serial killer, Dr. George Tiller.” Okay…Donohue goes on to condemn what he sees as the “politicization” of the killing by liberals, including those linking to the medley video of Bill O’Reilly labeling “Tiller the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-01T11:17:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Tiller.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Gibson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"George Tiller: Portrait of a...serial killer? - Pontifications","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"George Tiller: Portrait of a...serial killer? - Pontifications","og_description":"You fill in the blanks. And many are, with varying answers. Here’s Bill Donohue’s take: “The Catholic League unequivocally condemns the killing of serial killer, Dr. George Tiller.” Okay…Donohue goes on to condemn what he sees as the “politicization” of the killing by liberals, including those linking to the medley video of Bill O’Reilly labeling “Tiller the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html","og_site_name":"Pontifications","article_published_time":"2009-06-01T11:17:37+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Tiller.jpg"}],"author":"David Gibson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html","name":"George Tiller: Portrait of a...serial killer? - Pontifications","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Tiller.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-01T11:17:37+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-01T11:17:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Tiller.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Tiller.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/george-tiller-portrait-of-a.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"George Tiller: Portrait of a…serial killer?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/","name":"Pontifications","description":"Catholic Faith and Culture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71","name":"David Gibson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","caption":"David Gibson"},"description":"DAVID GIBSON is an award-winning religion journalist, author, filmmaker, and a convert to Catholicism. He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}