No, of course not. But you wouldn't know it from Diogenes' post on the magazine's recent editorial on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Here it is, in its entirety:

America Gordon

Posted by: Diogenes- Oct. 29, 2007 1:51 PM ET USA

America Magazine is editorially enraptured by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The son of a Presbyterian minister, Brown seems guidedby a moral vision that sees it as the government's duty to help theless fortunate.

Translation: he's pro-abortion.

I encourage you to read the "Current Comment" to which ur-Diogenes links. (For some reason, you still have to register in order to read anything on America's Web site.) You'll notice that none of the editorial's 253 words endorses Brown's views on abortion.

So what is ur-Diogenes up to? The latest post is one in a long line of attacks on America--all of which proceed from bad-faith assumptions about the editors' motives. Take, for example, Diogenes' commentary on the "Extra Virgin" incident. The editors were duped into running a fake ad for a statue of Mary clothed in a condom. Editor Drew Christiansen, SJ, quickly issued a public apology for the mistake.

That was not enough for ur-Diogenes. After urging Catholic World News readers to protest to the New York Jesuit provincial, the papal nuncio, and the Vatican--providing contact information for all of them--he accused the editors of lying. "There is probably no group, in the entire universal church, that is less likely to let that particular form of sacrilege slip by unnoticed than the Jesuits of America magazine in Manhattan," ur-Diogenes wrote. Then, without a shred of evidence, he asserted that "some person or persons in-house brought off the stunt, the predictableflap occurred, and we're getting the predictable damage control, theminimum necessary force required to keep America in the boundary-bending business." (This amounts to libel, and if ur-Diogenes had the courage to sign his name to his posts the editors might take him to court. Or perhaps CWN.) And then the kicker: "They must be wetting themselves laughing." Classy.

And now this apparently disgruntled Jesuit is insinuating that America magazine and its editors, most of them Jesuits, are "proabortion." Perhaps he missed the October 29 editorial on Amnesty International's new position on abortion, in which the editors pointedly ask, "How can an organization dedicated to the protection of human rights oppose the right to life of unborn children?" But given the attention ur-Diogenes has paid to America in the past, that's awfully hard to believe. Maybe he just thinks they're lying again.

Grant Gallicho joined Commonweal as an intern and was an associate editor for the magazine until 2015. 

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