Posted on 10/21/2004 12:43:27 PM PDT by St. Johann Tetzel
Excommunicated or Not, Kerry is not Permitted to Receive Communion
WASHINGTON, October 20, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The controversy over the Catholic lawsuit against Presidential candidate John Kerry, and the denial by Vatican personalities of having been involved in it in any way has generated confusion about Kerry's status within the church.
Apart from the question of whether or not Kerry is "automatically excommunicated", recent authoritative Vatican statements have made clear that he is, by virtue of his support for abortion, not permitted to receive communion.
The Catholic penalty of excommunication is to be distinguished from inadmissibility to receive communion which comes with being in a state of serious sin. The Vatican has spoken loud and clear about Catholic politicians who support abortion and their unworthiness to receive communion.
In April, the Vatican's leading prelate on the Sacraments, Cardinal Francis Arinze, declared unequivocally that unambiguously pro-abortion politicians should be denied Holy Communion. Later it was revealed that Cardinal Ratzinger, who heads the most important congregation in the Vatican, told U.S. bishops in a letter, entitled 'Worthiness to receive Holy Communion', that pro-abortion politicians, who will not alter their stand or abstain from communion after being instructed by church leaders, "must" be refused communion.
Kerry's own bishop, Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview in January, "These politicians should know that if they're not voting correctly on these life issues that they shouldn't dare come to communion."
Those clear positions have not stopped Kerry from coming forward to receive communion. As recently as October 11 he was reported to have received communion at a Catholic church. The Palm Beach Post reports that Kerry attended Mass and received communion at St. James Catholic Church in North Miami Beach. The paper reports that Rev. Jean Pierre "strayed from religion to politics, echoing some of Kerry's stump speech about the American Dream (being) on the ballot in November."
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage: Highest Authorities in Vatican Back Denial of Communion to Pro-Abortion Politicians http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jul/04070501.html Boston Archbishop Says Pro-Abortion Politicians "Shouldn't Dare Come to Communion" http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jan/04012301.html
See the Palm Beach Post coverage: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/politics/stories/10/11kerry.html
I'm guessin if we left out religion, abortion, you'd be cool ... no?
BTW, what PLAN would you be left with?
Nah, doesn't bother him.
Huge surprise.
"Faithful Catholics are now jihadists?
Actually, if they inject Church doctrine into politics, yes."
So if your legislators wanted to change the law to legalise the following:
1) Murder
2) Theft
3) Fraud
4) Deception
5) Violent assault
6) Sex with children and animals
7) Outlawing non-socialist political parties
8) Rape
...and the Catholic politicians tried to oppose them because all this was against "Church doctrine", they would be "jihadists" would they?
And you would naturally support all the above in order to oppose the jihadists?
"They merely cannot receive the sacraments since they married after a divorce without getting a proper annulment.
They are NOT excommunicated. All they have to do is sit down with a priest or deacon and get this process started."
Salvation, maybe they don't have grounds for an annulment? Most people who divorce and remarry outside the Church don't have such grounds - they simply live by the gonad rather than by the Spirit!
We can't just rattle off annulments like American women can just pop off down to the shops and murder their baby! Some things in life are just too important to be given over to the consumer mentality.
As heinous as the hundreds of alleged child abuse cases are,they pale besides the daily mrder of several thousands of totally defenseless, helpless babes in the womb. Victims of abortion cannot run away from their attacker, cannot tell someone else,can do nothing but suffer and DIE.
LOL! Get used to it, or get sick of it, OK by us either way, since WE created "conservatism." (Well, God did, we just follow Him.)
LOL! See my profile page.
The right to life is not Church doctrine; it is a basic truth. Catholics have a specific duty to support politics that honor life.
I can think of a Christian church that has a more cohesive, consistent and sane moral thread without all the molestatin the Catholic Chruch has had over the last number of years, but I know if I mention it, the wolves will come out and stray the focus away from what the real issue is - Kerry's hypocrisy of receiving holy communion despite his belief that women should have the right to kill their unborn babies.
Do not get me wrong here; I am not saying there is NEVER an occasion for which an abortion is justified; victims of rape or incest should have it left as an option as should women who have been informed by competent medical authorities (TWO or ore doctors) that the baby - not a fetus - has defects of such magnitude that make viability outside the womb untenable, or lastly, continuation of the pregnancy places the life of the mother in sever peril or at the risk of death. In THOSE circumstances, I believe abortion should be permissible, but ONLY after the couple have discussed it between them and have taken it up with the Lord in prayer.
God knows our hearts - he understand our needs and is aware of each situation and will factor them all accordingly. But as for elective abortion because someone chose to either not use birth control or to wait until they married, I have no sympathy, and I certainly do not believe they should compile one iniquity with another.
If it was only about rituals there wouldn't be the outcry from Catholics. It is a matter of Catholic faith that the Host is the actual Body of Christ and the wine is His actual blood. How can we watch that man dishonor Our Lord and not protest??
Is there a religion that condones abortion???
5.56mm
I view it as symbolic but even still it really doesn't matter. It IS GOD who has the final say. He sees Kerry for the fraud he is. I really doesn't matter.
Ideally he SHOULD be excommunicated but you know as well as I that he'll find a priest to go through the ritual.
See post 47.
I am a Roman Catholic, and there is one thing which I know of Southern Baptists: they try to the best of their ability to "walk the walk & talk the talk". For them there is only black and white...no grey. No ambiguity over what is and is not a sin. They use scripture (as we Catholics formerly did) as the ultimate reference guide to living in the ways of Christ.
For that, I applaud and support Baptists and all evangelical Christians - for sticking to their guns!
Unfortunately my beloved Catholic church has suffered through some 40 years of utter madness and confusion. Our church is rife with ambiguity about right and wrong. Our priests believe and preach (for the most part) what you and any good Christian would clearly see as heresy and apostacy - which our church, in its traditional teachings also views in this way.
The problem lies in the fact that the shepherds are nothing but wolves, and have lulled us Catholics to sleep, feeding us poison for the soul, instead of preaching loudly and clearly about sin & its consequences.
So Catholics are - for the most part - asleep....deeply asleep. I wish we would wake up, as a church, and rid ourselves of these apostates who lie to us from the pulpit, and fill our children's minds and souls with garbage.
Our problem is simply that we have trusted far too much. That we have not used the brains which God gave us for discernment of truth from falsehood.
First off, we don't have much of a choice. Bishops are appointed, and we have to remain civil (but not silent, thank God!)
Secondly, it's a good reminder that "life ain't fair,"--and that suffering is a good thing.
Finally, we have Purgatory, the place where one must go to get one's soul perfectly purified in preparation for the Beatific Vision. (Assuming we are not going straight to Hell....)
At any rate, Purgatorial sufferings CAN be mitigated by Earthly sufferings.
Having had Rembert Weakland as my Bishop for about 25 years, I figure I'm in pretty good shape, now...
And last year took their usurpment a bit further by voiding State laws against sodomy (beginning in Texas.)
Ummmmmhhhnnn...I think that if they re-married outside the Church, they ARE excommunicated, at least latae sententiae.
Red herring. First, the issues are not comparable (abortion vs. just war); and in the case of the Iraq war, while the Pope may criticize, he cannot affirmatively state that the US is wrong (nor did he--all he did was ask for another way to resolve it.)
If you want to excommunicate Kerry on this issue, you're going to have to excommunicate 2/3 of American Catholics, according to the most recent polls on this issue.
Not "all" US Catholics are Senators, Representatives, members of the Judiciary, (or similarly positioned in State governments.) The discussion centers on people in those positions who also claim to be Catholic.
As to whether many US Catholics are dead-wrong on the issue--you may be right.
As to GOP manipulation---maybe. I'm uncomfortable with the GOP's 'request' for Diocesan mailing lists, too.
However, as to ACTIONS, GWB's boyzzz have been absolutely sterling in the UN, and were GWB to get a few appointments through in his next term, you'll see some changes in judicial "thought."
Please erase my #77. I looked it up. Re-marriage outside the Church is not an excommunicable offense (although it COULD be under certain extreme conditions.)
Yes, unfortunately, almost 100% of the mainstream protestant denominations in America now condone abortion.
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