Posted on 05/26/2004 9:35:46 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
It was nearly 25 years ago that Robert Drinan, a member of Congress and an outspoken Jesuit (a redundancy if there ever was one), so enraged the Vatican with his defense of abortion rights that an order came down from Rome demanding priests withdraw from politics.
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It appears that someone has had a change of heart.
Or at least that's how it seems now that certain segments of the Roman Catholic hierarchy are behaving like wholly owned subsidiaries of the Republican Party, hellbent on a course that will weaken the church's moral authority and eventually deplete its membership. And all because of abortion, the issue the celibate male leadership is least equipped to personally understand
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
A) Quindlen practices a selective outrage. Her silence on this issue when Pope John Paul denigrates President Bush for sending the troops into Iraq is a hideously eloquent form of arch hypocrisy.
B) After all this talk about not casting the first stone, she sure issues a fatwa concerning what she expects the Catholic Bishops to do in Colorado.
"Next month American Catholic bishops meet for a retreat in Colorado. There they should speak out against grievous sin, the sin of using communion to punish by those who have not the moral authority to persuade."
Memo to The Deracinated Duchess Anna Quindlen: No, Anna, no one in the US supports changing our form of government to Jesuit theocracy. However, selective apostasy, targeted towards advancing your side of the debate, followed by a cloying, hypocritical invocation of biblical scripture is in itself a jaded political act.
It would be vastly more amusing if these Post-Modern heretics could at least be entertaining. Sin is indeed a boring and unoriginal pasttime.
A BIG difference between what Drinan did - go against the Church Dogma/beliefs - and now.
Now the Church is not going into politics, it is asserting its beliefs as stated in the Holy Bible.
If you do not believe in the Church - simple - you are out. That is what the Catholic Church is doing. Simply enforcing its own morals.
The kennedy/kerry/clintonistas do not know what morals are therefore they are against them.
Quindlen is - as usual - wrong; if anything, the bishops - because of their general pro-Democratic bent - have been looking the other way on this issue and giving pro-abortion politicians a free pass for years. They've been giving a nod and a wink to pro-abortion politicians as long as they accept the church's liberal agenda on "peace and justice" issues. But this crackdown by a tiny handful of prelates applies to politicians of either party, uncluding Rudy Giuliani.
The church would be better off if all the pro-abortion and pro-gay people walked out en masse. It's time for a housecleaning. There are too many people in the pews - and in the pulpits - who do not accept basic church doctrine or moral teaching. It's a sham.
This article is a window into the soul of a person already living in Hell. There is no off-the-shelf lie or smear or sophistry she is too ashamed to use. Once you have decided to kill babies, you are in Hell, and your intellect begins a downward spiral into total, demonic perversion.
"To paraphrase a Gospel passage, my Father's house is a house of prayer, but they have made it a den of partisanship."
Like you're not "partisan" Anna?
These members of the church were derided by conservatives as "cafeteria Catholics," picking and choosing their beliefs. Now we have cafeteria clergy, picking and choosing which prohibitions they emphasize and which politicians they damn. What of the pro-life policies of a living wage or decent housing?
Oh now I get it. To be "pro-life" is to be socialist.
Keep your hands outta my wallet Anna and your butt on the Upper East Side with the rest of your ilk.
These people are SICK.
Quindlen is deliberately mixing two different things when she says the Vatican has had a change of heart about priests mixing in politics. The edict against Drinan was about priests running for public office, not about taking stands on political issues. Church organizations - Catholic and non-Catholic - take positions on political issues all the time.
Oh my. I can see that Maureen Dowd now has competition for your affections.
Here is my email to the author:
Anna,
I wholeheartedly disagree with your editorial for many reasons.
Your reference to the Catholic church being a "subsidiary of the Republican Party". Last time I checked, that party is not 100% pro-life, nor is it nearly as dogmatic as the Catholic church itself.
You seem to think that churches have to conform to cultural and political standards. Not true. Churches' teachings should represent ideals -- something to strive for. The Pope has derided President Bush for the war on Iraq. I believe in the war, but I also believe in the ideal of peace. Similarly, I believe in reproductive rights, but I also believe in reproductive responsibilities.
I find your arguments hollow. You savage the church for taking a moral stand, yet your own words and thoughtrs are every bit as inflexible and restrictive. I find there is a certain vulgar arrogance in your rhetoric.
I sadly find liberals to be anything but liberal thinkers. They simply cannot accept anyone who thinks differently than they do. They are anything but inclusive, they love to lump catholics, coservatives, republicans and anyone else they can into a single neat category that they can brainlessly label and discredit.
What you fail to realize is that more of us than you'd ever want to realize have traversed the moral and political landscape from left to right searching for answers and have arrived where we are not because we are dogmatic and inflexible, but because, having considered every viewpoint and consequence, this is intellectually and morally where we choose to be.
That is the kind of choice that I believe in. Please open your mind to accept that.
If she replies, please post it.
Have the bishops strayed into politics? It seems to me that they are only concerned with protecting the sacraments of the Church from those who do not follow the tenets of the Church.
beautifully stated, and far less profane than anything I would have written.
a perfectly exposed leftist axiom. well put.
Keep your hands outta my wallet Anna and your butt on the Upper East Side with the rest of your ilk.
The problem is when they inflict themselves on the rest of the city...
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