Posted on 08/28/2008 5:56:19 AM PDT by NYer
Yet another catechetical moment arrives. This from today's Christian Science Monitor:
Against long odds, Senator Biden aims to be No. 4. He sees faith and values, as well as his own deep experience in public policy, as a key to that race.
"The animating principle of my faith, as taught to me by church and home, was that the cardinal sin was abuse of power," he said in an interview with the Monitor. "It was not only required as a good Catholic to abhor and avoid abuse of power, but to do something to end that abuse."
The issues that have most engaged Biden in public life draw on those teachings, from halting violence against women to genocide. At a personal level, his faith provides him peace, he says. "I get comfort from carrying my rosary, going to mass every Sunday. It's my time alone," he says.
But the interface of faith and policy has long been problematic for Catholic presidential hopefuls. Governor Smith faced withering criticism over whether Catholic politicians are obliged by their church to take policy orders from Rome. John F. Kennedy famously disavowed "outside religious pressures or dictates," swept the Catholic vote, and won the presidency. By the time another J.F.K. from Massachusetts ran for president in 2004, the ground had shifted. Sen. John F. Kerry lost the Catholic vote because many of his faith questioned whether he was Catholic enough, given his strong support for abortion rights.
But Biden believes he can bridge much of that divide. "My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine," says Biden, a six-term Democratic senator from Delaware. "There are elements within the church who say that if you are at odds with any of the teachings of the church, you are at odds with the church. I think the church is bigger than that."
If abortion isn't an abuse of power, I'm not sure what else qualifies. Who are more powerless than unborn children in the womb who, in the poignant words of Cardinal Egan, "smile and wave into the world outside the womb"? And does it really need to be pointed out that the Church is not bigger than the One who founded her? And that the Church was not founded as some sort of political "big tent," but is the household of God, and as such adheres in love and obedience to the teachings of her head, Jesus Christ, and to those He granted authority to teach, shepherd, govern, and guide?
As we well know, anybody trying to find where the Church says that abortion is morally acceptable, or can be allowed in certain situations, or is just another issue open to debate, is going to fail miserably. Which is probably why Biden and Co. don't bother to quote from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which leaves no doubt about the Church's stance on the issue of abortion:
155. The teachings of Pope John XXIII,[314] the Second Vatican Council,[315] and Pope Paul VI [316] have given abundant indication of the concept of human rights as articulated by the Magisterium. Pope John Paul II has drawn up a list of them in the Encyclical Centesimus Annus: “the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother's womb from the moment of conception; the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child's personality; the right to develop one's intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth; the right to share in the work which makes wise use of the earth's material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support oneself and one's dependents; and the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one's sexuality. In a certain sense, the source and synthesis of these rights is religious freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one's faith and in conformity with one's transcendent dignity as a person”[317].
The first right presented in this list is the right to life, from conception to its natural end,[318] which is the condition for the exercise of all other rights and, in particular, implies the illicitness of every form of procured abortion and of euthanasia.[319]
The CSM article provides some helpful hints as to why Biden thinks of himself as a good Catholic who has no problem denying core Catholic social teachings:
"My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world comes straight from my religion. It's not so much the Bible, the beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, the sacraments, or the prayers I learned. It's the culture," he writes.<snip>
"I was raised at a time when the Catholic Church was fertile with new ideas and open discussion about some of the basic social teaching of the Catholic Church," Biden says. "Questioning was not criticized; it was encouraged."
<snip>
"I don't think I have the right to impose my view – on something I accept as a matter of faith – on the rest of society," he writes in his autobiography.
<snip>
Without taking a position on how Catholics should vote, Biden makes a case for staying connected to the church and its culture. "If I were an ordained priest, I'd be taking some issue with some of the more narrow interpretations of the Gospel being taken now," Biden says. "But my church is more than 2,000 years old. There's always been a tug of war among prelates and informed lay members."
As if all Catholic priests believe and preach exactly what the Church teaches while "informed lay members" are restless free-thinkers pushing at the rigid boundaries of traditional doctrine. Hardly. This is both simplistic and misleading. The line of tension lies elsewhere: between those who accept and understand that certain matters of faith and morals are settled and those who think that it is one's all-powerful conscience that makes the final decision about such matters, even while paying lip service to loving the Church and so forth. The Catechism is quite clear that the latter approach is not the one taken by Catholics seeking to be disciples of Christ and loyal sons and daughters of His Church:
Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct. ...
A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith." (CCC 1792, 1794)
Perhaps Biden, Pelosi, and others do suffer from invincible ignorance. Or perhaps they are simply denying or ignoring what they know the Church does clearly teach. Regardless, any child receiving decent catechesis and anyone capable of reading the English language should recognize that Senator Biden's beliefs are not "totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine." One suspects, however, that the approach taken by Biden, Pelosi, and Co. will continue, which means the issue of abortion, Catholic politicians, and Church authority will continue to be a major story throughout the 2008 election.
• What Is "Legal"? On Abortion, Democracy, and Catholic Politicians | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• What Is Catholic Social Teaching? | Mark Brumley
• The Case Against Abortion | An Interview with Dr. Francis Beckwith, author of Defending Life
Ignorant and arrogant.
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The ego is often our worst enemy - Biden needs our prayers to overcome his.
It is so sad to watch the devil use people so effectively.
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.
And stupid. I saw her on TV recently. She’s a bimbo.
All of the above proves that a good rationalization is something worth its weight in gold - especially if you want to sleep at night and look at yourself in the morror while shaving.
Mr. Biden knows that he is incorrect. He just won’t admit it, and that is a mortal sin.
Yeah the Church is a big tent- but sanctity of human life from conception is turning out to be the tall pole in that tent.
Biden, Pelosi and others are being exposed as mere canvas drapers.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
JFK never publicly advocated the abortion of children. He would never have been elected to the House, Senate, or White House if he had. In 1972, when his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver ran on the pro-abort McGovern ticket he was trounced.
It is a tragedy that public opinion on human life has deteriorated to the point where pro-aborts can be politically popular. Regardless of public opinion, the Christian Church has a responsibility to publicly denounce those who cooperate with and finance abortion with public funds.
He’s either a liar or a fool. Oh wait...it’s Biden. He’s both.
Oops. I was thinking of Pelosi. I plead a lack of caffeine.
Just like the majority of non-Catholics he has chosen his own theology by what he wants to believe, making God in his own image. I think it is coming to a head just like other things in the past and something is going to have to be done. These cafeteria Catholics need to choose, God or Mammon.
Make that a double ;-)
LOL!
Arrogant? Yes. Ignorant? No. That makes him all the more culpable.
In other words, an intrusion of modernist ideas which intellectually seduced cultural Catholics like Biden and Pelosi.
making God in his own image.
_____
When a person defines morality according to their personal desires and interests they accept as good those sins that have seared their conscience through repitition.
For these people religion is the practice of rites and rituals, not absolute truths.
Both Biden and Pelosi understand their religion as nothing more than rosary beads, Mass and Bingo.
One of those "elements" that says this is the Pope. I guess Biden feels like he is more enlightened than the Pope. Again, how about a few excommunications of some of these American politicians who are IMHO heretics?
One more item of note.
Did anyone other than me notice Biden on stage with his grandchildren last night?
After holding his youngest he embraced his 13 yr old grand daughter and kissed her on the mouth. The child acted in an odd way, tried to follow him and was visibly nonplussed.
There is a man in jail for committing precisely this act. Know who?
*And your 0% rating from the National Right To Life Committee was probably just an oversight.* The brazen deception of these politicians is just evil. I would respect these supporters of evil perhaps a bit more if they would just not mention their religion at all. But they are actually actively trying to court the Catholic vote by misrepresenting the Church and playing to those Catholics who already don't follow the Church's teachings. Disgusting! Biden's record
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