Former Massachusetts Rep. Father Robert Drinan holds up a copy of the 1974 impeachment report of President Nixon while testifying on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment hearing in this Dec. 8, 1998 file photo. Drinan, a Jesuit who - over the objections of his superiors - became the first Roman Catholic priest to serve as a voting member of Congress, died Sunday. . (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1775268/posts
I'll say it again:
I have absolutely NO sympathy for Drinan.
I'm glad he's dead.
He was an enemy of this country.
No, he won't. He'll be remembered among practicing Catholics for teaching a whole mob of Democrat politicians that baby-killing is perfectly OK with God.
It would be interesting to see how Drinan is explaing to the Lord Jesus how he strongly supported Bill Clinton's veto of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 1996, along with his consistent support for so-called 'abortion rights'.
A little less political grandstanding, and a little more evangelizing for lost souls would have been a more productive use of Drinan's time on this Earth.
Barring Priests from being involved in politics, period. John McLaughlin chose politics and ended up seeking laicization. Drinan probably felt he could do more damage to the Church by remaining a Priest than in becoming just another leftist puke on Capitol Hill. Incidentally, Drinan was replaced in Congress by one Barney Frank.
I am conflicted here. My dislike of this person is struggling mightily with my desire for propriety in observing courtesy for his family in his passing.
I guess I will extend his family the courtesy of not speaking ill of him at this time.
He probably qualifies as "Worst Jesuit Ever," and there has been a lot of competition over the past 40 years.
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Why is it the Jesuits that are always so screwed up?
If we make the assumption that the founder of the Jesuit order is in heaven, I do wonder what he would think of this latest entrant to the spritiual plane...
The poor man needs our prayers...imagine, he is now having to confront the aborted babies whose lives he helped end.
As the March for Life was gearing up with Archbishop Wuerl playing a leading role, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, the influential editor of First Things magazine wrote on the First Things site about the Pelosi situation. "When the aforementioned Nancy Pelosi orchestrated a four-day gala in Washington celebrating her familial, ethnic, and-very explicitly-Catholic identity, people were alert to what would be said by the new archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl," wrote Fr. Neuhaus. "He said nothing. Part of the festivities was a Mass at Trinity College, a Catholic institution in Washington. The celebrant of the Mass was Father Robert Drinan, a Jesuit who, more than any other single figure, has been influential in tutoring Catholic politicians on the acceptability of rejecting the Church's teaching on the defense of innocent human life. Asked by a reporter, Archbishop Wuerl responded that Fr. Drinan has 'faculties' in Washington, meaning he is authorized to celebrate the sacraments. That was it."
I wonder if his successor in Congress, Representative Barney FWANK is going to be allowed to give the eulogy - or will the honor go to a good Catholic Senator from Massachusetts instead?
Kerry or Kennedy?
Expressing "regret and pain," Father Drinan left the House in 1981 after the Vatican ruled that no priest could hold a legislative position.
Translation: like Fr Coughlin he was silenced by the hierarchy.
Priests should stick to religion.
RIP and GR.
How is it that Sean Cardinal O'Malley receives no dishonorable mention in the Neuhaus article, having under his silent ecclesiastical jurisdiction the pluperfect example of Catholic political life in the USA,
one Edward Moore (not after Thomas More) Kennedy,
who, at his mother's funeral, of course piously stretched out his hand to receive Holy Communion from the Eminent Bernard Law . . . which I supposed was OK as his previous marriage of close to 30 years had been duly annulled by those sworn never to put asunder what God had joined together.
Then there's always John Forbes Kerry (who served in Viet Nam).
Of course, right up the street from Boston, in the Diocese of Worcester, we have a bishop who, when he was still just a priest and moral theology advisor for another diocese, taught that euthanasia was OK, and that didn't seem to get in the way of his promotion to the episcopacy, nor have I ever seen any public repudiation by said bishop of his previous erroneous teachings.
I had little time for Drinan myself. But I think this "glad he's dead" and "he's in hell" talk of some posters here is beyond-the-pale, does not reflect well on Freerepublic, and should be reserved for such as murderers and rapists. Drinan’s abortion "straddle" was not, I think disingenuous like that of some politicians. I saw Drinan speak to a July 4th crowd in Harvard, Mass. in the mid-1970s. He did not have to bring up the topic of abortion – indeed, it seemed out of place to the occasion, and shocked the sentiment of the crowd, which probably had more Unitarians than Catholics – but he did indeed harangue us on the sanctity of life and the tragedy of abortion.