[shempy]

From my perspective as an ex-Catholic living in the about most Catholic city in America, this should be of no concern to Rudy. Heck, he still calls himself a catholic, and there is the trouble. I would hazard to guess that upwards of 90% of Catholics are closet protestants in that they don't follow the Catholic doctrine. Not out of ignorance, but out of choice. They feel no need to obey the church, yet they still consider themselves to be catholic.

As a label, "Catholic" is even more meaningless than "Republican".

[JohnnyZ]

As a label, "Catholic" is even more meaningless than "Republican".

The Church has taken a clear and vocal stand on life issues.

What has your church done?

[Frank Sheed]

I would hazard to guess that upwards of 90% of Catholics are closet protestants in that they don't follow the Catholic doctrine. Not out of ignorance, but out of choice. They feel no need to obey the church, yet they still consider themselves to be catholic.

As a label, "Catholic" is even more meaningless than "Republican".

Actually, the label that fits them most appropriately is "heretic."

St. Thomas (II-II:11:1) defines heresy: "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas". "The right Christian faith consists in giving one's voluntary assent to Christ in all that truly belongs to His teaching. There are, therefore, two ways of deviating from Christianity: the one by refusing to believe in Christ Himself, which is the way of infidelity, common to Pagans and Jews; the other by restricting belief to certain points of Christ's doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure, which is the way of heretics. The subject-matter of both faith and heresy is, therefore, the deposit of the faith, that is, the sum total of truths revealed in Scripture and Tradition as proposed to our belief by the Church. The believer accepts the whole deposit as proposed by the Church; the heretic accepts only such parts of it as commend themselves to his own approval. The heretical tenets may be ignorance of the true creed, erroneous judgment, imperfect apprehension and comprehension of dogmas: in none of these does the will play an appreciable part, wherefore one of the necessary conditions of sinfulness--free choice--is wanting and such heresy is merely objective, or material. On the other hand the will may freely incline the intellect to adhere to tenets declared false by the Divine teaching authority of the Church. The impelling motives are many: intellectual pride or exaggerated reliance on one's own insight; the illusions of religious zeal; the allurements of political or ecclesiastical power; the ties of material interests and personal status; and perhaps others more dishonourable. Heresy thus willed is imputable to the subject and carries with it a varying degree of guilt; it is called formal, because to the material error it adds the informative element of "freely willed".

[Right in Wisconsin]

with all due respect, speak for yourself, don't generalize unless you have the facts to back it up - only liberals generalize to prove an unprovable point

[Right in Wisconsin]

oh yeah - one more thing - everyone is a sinner, and just because Catholics sin like the rest makes them no less Catholic - in fact, the Catholic church believes in forgiveness and give credit for doing the best you can understanding that humans are weak (or is that for protestants only)

[Revenge of Sith]

The Catholic Church today doesn't have any high profile bishops with the moral clarity of the late Cardinal O'Connor, so this isn't going to hurt Rudy.