Posted on 05/10/2010 8:46:04 PM PDT by GonzoII
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www.catholicnewsagency.com
Costa Rica
Bishop fined for urging faithful to vote according to Catholic teachings
.- Costa Rica’s Electoral Supreme Court has ordered Bishop Jose Francisco Ulloa to pay damages for encouraging the faithful to cast their votes in manner consistent with Catholic teachings. The bishop made his comments during a Mass on September 6, 2009, amidst the presidential campaign season and the debate over abortion and homosexual rights. Yeudy Blanco Vega of the Movement for a Secular State argued the bishop violated article 28 of the Costa Rican constitution which forbids members of the clergy from engaging in political propaganda. The court interpreted the bishop's comments as political propaganda rather than pastoral guidance, and therefore ordered him to “abstain from urging people not to vote for candidates who in his judgment do not share the values of the Catholic faith.” The court also ordered him to pay damages and legal fees. What was said During the Mass last September, Bishop Ulloa told the faithful, “We are facing a political campaign in which we must carefully choose who is going to govern us. We are now finding out which candidates deny God and defend principles that go against life, marriage, and the family. Therefore, we must be coherent with our faith and cannot give them our vote in good conscience.” In response to criticism from certain politicians, the president of the Bishops’ Conference of Costa Rica, Archbishop Hugo Barrantes, pointed to article 76 of the Pastoral Constitution, “Gaudium et Spes.” “It is only right, however, that at all times and in all places, the Church should have true freedom to preach the faith, to teach her social doctrine, to exercise her role freely among men, and also to pass moral judgment in those matters which regard public order when the fundamental rights of a person or the salvation of souls require it.”
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What damages?
Catholic clergy can always speak to issues. They cannot endorse candidates.
The Bishop, in my opinion, need not pay the fine, but there are plenty of lawyers who will help him out.
This is in Costa Rica.
I tried to make it clear with that info next to the date....
San José, Costa Rica, May 10, 2010
Dang.
Who was at Mass that ratted him out?
He told his Parish to do the right thing.
On another note ya ever where Glenn Beck got the chalkboard idea?
I was thinking Fulton Sheen had the chalk board on his tv shows 50 years ago!
So much for all those Libs who thought Rush would be at home in a place like Costa Rica!
Seriously, don’t you just KNOW this is exactly what Washington would like to do to COnservatives right now?! To some degree they are already doing it!
The Church (no matter what shingle hangs out front) has a moral responsibility to be SALT as well as light in the culutres and nations in which they live. They MUST speak to these issues. Insofar as they are a part of the Body Politic, and insofar as the morailty of Christianity affects the course and the welfare of that nation, they are not at liberty to remain QUIET.
This bishop did no wrong UNLESS he specifically instructed his voters who to vote for or against by name. And even then, if it is clear that a leader is evil, that he favors killing unborn babies, favors the right of homosexuals to “marry,” discriminates against/persecutes one particular religion — like Christianity, and is hostile to traditional morals, I don’t know that it’s SIN to call him out by name and say a vote for him would be a sin. Would John the Baptist have remained silent before Herod in light of his sins? Or would Peter and Paul have ceased their Christian witness before Nero?
Certainly their preaching still made them criminals — but they were obeying GOD. In this case, perhaps that’s EXACTLY what this Bishop was doing. Perhaps the Church in America needs to find it’s prophetic voice as well.
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