Posted on 05/20/2004 6:19:23 AM PDT by NYer
Edited on 05/20/2004 8:46:00 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Forty-eight Roman Catholic members of Congress have warned in a letter to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that U.S. bishops will revive anti-Catholic bigotry and severely harm the church if they deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.The letter's signers, all Democrats, include at least three House members with strong antiabortion voting records.
"For many years Catholics were denied public office by voters who feared that they would take direction from the Pope," they wrote. ". . . While that type of paranoid anti-Catholicism seems to be a thing of the past, attempts by Church leaders today to influence votes by the threat of withholding a sacrament will revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice, which so many of us have worked so hard to overcome."
The three-page letter, dated May 10, was sent to McCarrick because he heads a task force of U.S. bishops that is considering whether, and how, the church should take action against Catholic politicians whose public positions are at odds with Catholic doctrine.
McCarrick's spokesman, Susan Gibbs, said he would not comment on the letter. She said the seven-member task force is "listening to many different voices" and will grant the 48 House members' request for a meeting. "They will be heard. It just hasn't been arranged yet," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Thank you, Father Sausage.
If their lawyers are still fighting sexual abuse victims in court, of if they're still covering for abusive priests, I don't care what they speak out on.
They're not morally credible.
Steve Lynch is most certainly NOT pro-life. If he says he is, he is a liar. In his only term, he voted against banning cloning and for US funding of oversees abortion in 2003. Both of these were highly bipartisan votes, with dozens of defecting Democrats and even more defecting Republicans. Without any apparent party pressure, he voted pro-choice.
Ping. (As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, please send me a FReepmail. Please note that this is occasionally a high volume ping list and some of my ping posts are long.)
When Christ told the woman at the well, "Go and sin no more" was it not an admonition for all?
Most of this seems to be playing to the media. What questions and issues they do raise amount to good teaching opportunities for the bishops, provided they respond just as publically.
I doubt that, but I have sent for info, and NOT from Right-to-Life, which is squishy.
If I get info, you'll see it here, first.
You could ask Dolan. See my post this AM--he's fired 23 apparatchiks in Milwaukee.
Round One's bell just sounded.
Or as opposed to weasel-wording Bishops, priests, and Deacons
1. He is a conservative Republican.
2. Though baptized Catholic, he is now a Baptist.
3. Even so, he is more Catholic than most of the AmChurch types, which is not too difficult.
4. Solid guy. Solid Christian. Solid Republican.
Tired of rat lies? Now we have rats threatening the Church. Join us at catholicsagainstkerry.com
Tired of rat lies? Now we have rats threatening the Church. Join us at catholicsagainstkerry.com
"Pro-Life" is defined differently by the usual suspects. I recall the NRA tussle over Stupak's chops and have my doubts.
FYI, I take a simple view: no abortions, NO EXCEPTIONS. No "stem-cell" experiments except from ADULT stem-cells.
I've emailed a reliable source in N. WI. about Stupak. We'll see.
=== U.S. bishops will revive anti-Catholic bigotry
Though it's a little late for that, the scandal considered ... I say BRING IT!!
About time we restored the natural order of things.
SS. And you are sinless so you are morally credible on all subjects?
Please post your sins so that we may judge your moral credibility!
The can try it...but the denominational traditional antagonists such as conservative Baptists will probably close ranks with the Catholics on this issue and other moral issues. The success of the movie 'Passion' should be giving the politicians a clue. If so many people would spend money to what this movie...then these same people will be motivated to vote in the fall.
So I guess by this Congressman's reasoning, if a politician "in good conscience" comes to the the personal decision that murdering one's parents is not wrong, then pushes that line of reasoning through Congress, the Bishops shouldn't tell him that he's WRONG and enforce the Church's teaching by denying him Communion.
I can't see the Bishops' decisions causing anti-Catholic bigotry. Anyone disposed to being anti-Catholic is going to be no matter what the Bishops do. The Bishops are not telling the politicians HOW to vote, they are only telling the politicians the CONSEQUENCES within the Church of their votes.
These politicians have been living with split personalities, if we believed what they are telling us, that they are "personally opposed, but". Somehow they manage to vote their personal beliefs on any number of OTHER pieces of legislation, from welfare to the Iraq war in opposition to the majority of their constituents, but can't manage to vote their alleged personal beliefs on this one issue that affects their immortal souls? I don't buy it!
All I can give you is my own opinion, Sink. I WOULDN'T do business with a pharmacist who distributed RU486, simply because I wouldn't want to reward his evil. But as for whether or not YOU would sin if you did so, that is between you and Almighty God. You know your heart. You know your state of grace. But to KNOWINGLY and DELIBERATELY patronize an individual who is deliberately dealing in death should be a sin. I can understand one unwittingly becoming a customer. If I knew the local pharmacist dispensed RU486, I would no longer go to him for anything, even a pack of gum. For ME, to knowingly go there would be sinful. But to go there NOT KNOWING that he dispensed RU486 would not be sinful. You know as well as I do that if any of the three requirements for serious sin are not present, then there is no sin there.
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