Posted on 05/10/2008 7:15:47 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius should stop taking Communion until she repudiates her support for the "serious moral evil" of abortion, the Catholic archbishop for northeast Kansas says.
Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, also criticized the governor Friday for her recent veto of a bill imposing new restrictions on abortion providers.
In a column published in the archdiocesan newspaper the Leaven, Naumann called on the Catholic governor to take the "necessary steps for amendment of her life."
Naumann later told the Kansas City Star that would involve a confession, a public apology and a promise to undo the damage done by her "scandalous behavior that has misled people into dangerous behavior."
Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said the governor had not seen the column, but said "receiving Communion has not been a problem in the past for her."
The Catholic Church has also declared near-total opposition to the death penalty, though abortion has been the issue with Catholic politicians and Communion in the past.
In New York, Cardinal Edward Egan said former mayor Rudy Giuliani had broken "an understanding" by accepting Communion at a papal Mass during Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit to the United States.
Four years ago, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said leaders who support abortion rights were "cooperating in evil" and their bishop should decide whether to deny them Communion.
But not all Catholic leaders have agreed.
Speaking about the debate in 2004, Bishop Raymond J. Boland of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph told a Star columnist, "I don't think I have any right to invade another person's conscience when they come to me."
Naumann said he wrote to Sebelius in August and asked her to refrain from Communion but learned that she'd participated in the sacrament at a church in Topeka. He said he again wrote and asked her to respect his request and "not require from me any additional pastoral actions."
Forcing priests to refrain from giving the governor Communion would be one option, but one not being considered by the archbishop. Instead, he said he puts the burden on Sebelius to do the "right thing."
For Catholics, he said, the Eucharist is the literal nourishment of the body of Jesus Christ and not a symbolic gesture. So to support abortion and take Communion creates an unacceptable theological contradiction.
"The spiritually lethal message, communicated by our governor, as well as many other high-profile Catholics in public life, has been in effect: 'The church's teaching on abortion is optional!' " Naumann wrote in the Friday column.
Sebelius has been a strong supporter of abortion rights throughout her career. She has repeatedly vetoed legislation sought by anti-abortion groups and supported by the state's Catholic leaders.
Bishop Robert Finn, Boland's successor in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, said in a statement Friday that Sebelius' Catholicism made her "consistent support of abortion especially troubling."
Wow, I wish more bishops would take this stand...
Good for Archbishop Naumann. The Catholic church is not a club. You believe in it or you don’t. You can’t just CLAIM you believe just to get votes.
Great for the Archbishop, Sebelius is a monstrous hypocrite.
But even in a club, you have to abide by the rules or leave. Or if you won't leave, they throw you out.
Lazy and greedy politicians have been taking the Church for a ride for generations, claiming to belong to the Church just to get the Catholic vote, but obviously and publically neither believing nor following Her teachings.
About time that the bishops took action. If they had stood up to the liberal Democrats in the first instance, they might have stopped the whole abortion holocaust before it got started.
There’s a place for cherry picking Catholics — it’s the Episcopal Church.
And for many Episcopalians who wish to not accept the liberal theology of the church leaders — there’s the Catholic Church.
The Pope and the community of bishops need to take the same hard line as this archbishop.
I’m not the best of practitioners but I will happily say ROCK ON to the archbishop.
But, Your Lordship, you do have a responsibility when that person gives public scandal that affects the Church and her Magisterium.
Bishop Boland, am I invading your conscience if I ask if you are still in communion with Rome?
Great Work by “Bishop Nauman” .
Now tell me what Nauman has done or is doing to Rid the Catholic Church of appproximately 20,000 Homosexual Priests still practicing in the church.
Read Fr. Cozzens book, the
“Changing Face of the Priesthood”.
How did Kansas elect this gov? I do not know much about Kansas politics but a litle about her neighbor to the south, Oklahoma (where I now live).
I can't tell you and I don't want to steer this thread off-topic. Just fight the good fight in whatever patch of earth and influence God has given you.
I am proud to read what this bishop has said and done.
Those who even approve of their misdeeds are to be admonished in one way, in another, those those who confess their sins but do not avoid them. Those who even uphold their misdeeds are to be admonished to consider that often they offend more by their mouth than by their deed. For the evil that they do is, in fact, only personal, but by their evil words they make themselves responsible for wickedness in as many persons who hear them and are instructed in wickedness by extollng it. They are, therefore, to be admonished that if they fail to eradicate their own evil, they should, at least, dread the sowing of it. They are warned to be content with their own personal damnation.
Again, they are to be admonished that if they are not afraid of being wicked, they should at least be ashamed of being seen for what they are. Often a sin that is concealed is avoided, because a mind that is ashamed to be taken for what it does not fear to be in fact, is sometimes ashamed to be in fact what it avoids appearing to be. On the other hand, when a man is shamelessly and notoriously wicked, then, the more freely he commits every kind of evil, the more he thinks it lawful, and in imagining it lawful, he is thereby undoubtedly immersed in it all the more. Wherefore, it is written, "They have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it". For if Sodom had concealed its sin, she would still have sinned, but in fear. But she had completely lost the curb of fear, in that she did not even seek darkness in her sinning. Wherefore, it is said again: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied." For sin in words is sin in act, but sin that is cried out is sin committed with deliberation.
ping
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