Ten questions regarding the denial of the Eucharist
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Posted on 10/08/2004 1:54:12 PM PDT by Diago
JOHN KERRY'S RELIGION September 28, 2004
by Joe Sobran
In his convention acceptance speech, John Kerry made a brief, vague reference to his "faith" and skipped over the subject even more quickly than he did his political career. A few months ago, it appeared that Kerry might have trouble with some Catholic bishops if he tried to take Communion, because of his consistent advocacy of abortion.
But Kerry and his defenders insisted that he was a Catholic in good standing, and the issue faded away. Still, there were unanswered questions about how seriously Kerry took his Catholicism. Had he gotten his first marriage annulled before marrying Teresa Heinz? Why did he attend Protestant services instead of Catholic Mass, even taking communion in the Protestant rites -- things Catholics have always been forbidden to do?
A long profile of Mrs. Kerry in THE NEW YORKER casually answers some of these questions. Judith Thurman writes, "After a brief courtship, a short period of cohabitation, and the signing of a prenuptial agreement, the Kerrys were married in a civil ceremony on Nantucket in 1995."
There is a world of meaning here for Catholics, and for anyone who takes Kerry's professions of faith seriously. He and his wife, both baptized Catholics, are living together in defiance of Catholic teaching. In the eyes of the Church, their marriage is invalid: Catholics may not marry outside the Church. The issue of abortion aside, the Kerrys are both ineligible to receive Communion.
Catholic rules on this are ancient and firm. They are no longer firmly enforced, since the Second Vatican Council has created (or been used to spread) the false impression that the "old rules" have somehow lapsed. In fact, annulments are now scandalously easy to obtain. It's become common for long-married couples with several children to get rulings that their marriage never existed. Annulments, once rare, have become the Catholic answer to no-fault divorce.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that Kerry didn't bother to wait for an annulment (which he claims to have belatedly applied for recently) before marrying the widowed Teresa Heinz. This confirms the suspicion that Kerry is, in fact, a thoroughly secularized man, whose regard for Catholicism is minimal.
And if Kerry takes Communion in Catholic churches, he is, in Catholic eyes, committing the grave sin of sacrilege -- receiving the Body of Christ unworthily, as St. Paul puts it. This would also make him a hypocrite.
Some Catholic moral theologians argue that a prenuptial agreement makes a marriage invalid as well, since it shows that the parties are already contemplating divorce. They are supposed to be committing themselves to an indissoluble union. Nor may they cohabit before marrying.
To Catholics, all this is far more significant than the details of Kerry's war record. He has tried to represent himself as a faithful Catholic, when he simply is not, and he knows it. His long record of promoting abortion is only part of the picture.
Kerry has belatedly scrambled to say he disapproves of abortion, but nothing in his record gives the slightest hint of moral reservations about killing the unborn. This is simply the pro forma "personally opposed" gesture of nominally Catholic liberal politicians, as familiar as it is empty. Kerry in fact has favored even grisly late-term abortions, which the late Senator Patrick Moynihan, otherwise another pro-abortion Catholic, bluntly called "infanticide." The crushing of an infant's skull in the birth canal, with the extraction of its brain, isn't something to which you should merely be "personally opposed"; it's something that should make you sick.
But what else should we expect of a liberal Massachusetts Democrat who has always idolized the Kennedys? In 1960, when John Kennedy became the first Catholic to be elected president of the United States, some people worried that he would act as a tool of the Vatican. Nobody need have the least worry that President John Kerry would let his Catholicism slow him down. Neither did President Kennedy, but we would learn that only much later.
Kerry's religious ambiguity is one large reason he seems so hard to pin down. What does he really believe, and what difference does it make? He hasn't been pressed on his religious views as he has been on his Vietnam days, but he has featured his religion too as a key part of his makeup. It would be no intrusion on his privacy to ask him, politely, how his voting record would be different if he were non-Catholic -- or, for that matter, anti-Catholic.
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Read this column on-line at "http://www.sobran.com/columns/2004/040928.shtml".
The Church is responsible for that nonsense. It forfeited anything resembling Catholic doctrine at the Second Vatican Council, and for more than 30 years has been a proponent of "feel-good, get-along-with-everybody" religion (which is NOT Catholicism). Whenever a good priest calls for restoration of doctrine and devotion, he is shunted off to some remote outpost or lowly duty, while the pederasts, idolaters, apostates, and outright heretics "rise through the ranks."
The popes, cardinals, and bishops of the last 35 years are the ones who created the Kerrys of today.
later, Joe Sobran
Gee, I thought early on he told us he follows the teachings of Pope Pius XXIII?
Man, that is still one of the dumbest things ever to come out of anyone's mouth.
His "war record, personal life and faith" are what SHAPES his politics, so you better MAKE them of interest to you.
wait! I don't understand this. I'm not Catholic so that is probably why. It says he couldn't wait to marry teresa and recently filed for annulment. What does that mean? To a non catholic it sounds like h's a bigamist and I think that is a wrong assumption.
My first clue that his wedding to Tereeeeesa pry wasn't valid was when I read it was on the beach. It's really difficult to get a priest to preside over a wedding that's not in an actual church. You have to get special dispensations from up the "chain of command" and there has to be a good reason for it.
Good one!
Ten questions regarding the denial of the Eucharist
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
.
JOHN KERRY's actions during and after his Vietnam Days are his religion and belief system.
JOHN KERRY has always been on the side of our Terrorist Enemies:
1) Communist Terrorist Leader HO CHI MINH during the Vietnam War
2) Communist Terrorist Leader DANIEL ORTEGA when his CASTRO-Backed Communists were pushing to take over Central America south of San Diego CA during the 1980's.
3) Communist Terrorist Soviet Union during the Cold War.
4) Middle East Terrorist Leader SADDAM HUSSEIN during the 1st & 2nd Gulf Wars
5) Islamic Terrorist Leader OSAMA bin LADEN as his forces now do all they can to eliminate us from the face of the Earth.
REGISTER & VOTE like your very life & Freedom depend on it.
'Cause they DO..!!!
.
.
A President JOHN KERRY =
Victory over US by our Terrorist Eenmies
Aloha Freedom
Aloha United States of America
.
The measure of a mans character is how he professes his faith... Kerry is a false Catholic.. he is a false politician... God knows of John Kerrys sell out and he will pay with his soul ...
I'd like to know HOW he can consider himself to be a Catholic, or ANY other religion that believes in Jesus Christ as our Savior, when he is clearly walking outside of the Commandments of the Bible. God will NOT be mocked and the sKerry Sinator from MA is going to have to give account for his actions when he stands before Almighty God.
Wow, sounds like true love to me.
< /sarcasm >
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