Posted on 11/19/2008 3:56:29 PM PST by wagglebee
WASHINGTON, November 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The possible signing of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) by President-Elect Barack Obama would be "the equivalent of a war" an unnamed senior Vatican official recently told TIME magazine.
The startling comments make the second time this week that a Vatican official has forthrightly and in the strongest language condemned Obama's extreme policies on abortion. Speaking at the Catholic University of America a few days ago, Vatican Cardinal James Stafford labeled Obama's anti-life policies as "aggressive, disruptive, and apocalyptic," also noting that, "On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake" (see coverage: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111703.html).
With Catholic, but outspokenly pro-abortion individuals occupying two prominent positions (Joseph Biden as vice president and Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services Secretary) the specter of public excommunication or denial of communion for prominent members of the Obama Administration has arisen.
The focus of the Vatican’s concern, FOCA, is a bill that would do away with state laws on abortion, including laws mandating parental involvement, or banning partial birth abortion. FOCA would also compel taxpayer funding of abortions, and, of greatest concern to Bishops, would force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.
Obama has in the past said that he would make signing FOCA one of the highest priorities of his presidency.
Last week at the meeting of US Bishops in Baltimore, Cybercast News Service asked Chicago Cardinal Francis George, the current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, if voting for FOCA would bring a penalty of automatic excommunication for Catholic politicians. The Cardinal did not rule it out.
"The excommunication is automatic if that act is in fact formal cooperation, and that is precisely what would have to be discussed once you would see the terms of the act itself," responded Cardinal George. When asked for more, he added: "The categories in moral theology about cooperating in evil, which make you complicit in the evil even though you don't do it yourself, are material cooperation, which is usually remote and therefore doesn't involve you in the moral action except in a very auxiliary and minor way, and formal cooperation, which would involve you even though you are not doing it, in the way that makes you culpable.
"So we would have to take a look at each case, and at each law, to determine whether or not the cooperation is material or formal. We've never done that."
Cardinal George has, however, personally analyzed FOCA and expressed his grave concerns about the legislation. In a message to the Obama Administration at the end of the USCCB meeting George wrote on FOCA, saying it would, "outlaw any ‘interference’ in providing abortion at will. It would deprive the American people in all fifty states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry. FOCA would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their tax dollars. It would counteract any and all sincere efforts by government and others of good will to reduce the number of abortions in our country."
The Cardinal added: "FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children. It would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities." (see coverage: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111209.html )
In light of this possible attempt to revoke conscience rights under the Obama administration, Catholic League president Bill Donohue has urged President Bush to enact regulations, already in draft for months, which would protect the rights of doctors, nurses and health workers from being discriminated against if they refuse to perform or assist in abortions, as well as other morally contentious procedures. "At stake are the religious rights of these professionals," said Donohue.
"To put it differently, were FOCA to become law (it needs to be reintroduced in the House), the culture war that the Vatican official was referring to would come to a boiling point," he warned. "In practical terms, this would mean the closure of every Catholic hospital in the nation: No bishop is going to stand by and allow the federal government to dictate what medical procedures must be performed in Catholic hospitals. Make no mistake about it, the bishops would shut down Catholic hospitals before acquiescing in the intentional killing of an innocent child. Were this to happen, it would not only cripple the poor, it would cripple the Obama administration."
Donohue concluded: "It is for reasons like these that the Catholic League urges President Bush to move with dispatch in instituting rules protecting the religious rights of all health care workers. If Obama wants to undo them, it will set up a confrontation he will surely regret."
See the TIME article:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1859856,00.htm...
See the Cybercast News article:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14369
Same beast, different names.
He always hates man (God’s image), and will use any form of eugenics and oppression he can.
Let’s do it. Pick your banners friends... no half-stepping. Time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
“Limbaugh said today that Obama got half of the Catholic vote. So the war would be Obama and half of the Catholics against the other half of the Catholics.”
So be it. I say, bring it on.
“Wrong is wrong even if everybody is doing it, and right is right even if nobody is doing it.” St. Augustine
He has. Over and over again. You must not have been listening. What do you think he talked about when he was here in the US in April?! Why do you think the bishops are starting to speak out now?
“Foxx’s Book Of Martyrs” is an eye-opener.
pbear8, don’t bother gracing this ignorant statement with a response... Let’s pray that his eyes and heart are opened.
Why does he not just demand that the Bishops not serve Mass to these politicians. I am listening to the Catholic Church dance around this issue very closely. Some Bishops serve Mass to these politicians, some do not. Leadership starts at the top.
Do you happen to know the name of the paper and who authored it? The strange thing is that the 1891 encyclical by Pope Leo XIII , Rerum Novarum expressly forbids socialism. There were a number of other popes who rejected socialism, and the current Catechism is more in favor of a free market and property rights tempered by morals. Too many are stating that the church teaches the opposite. It's a misinformation war meant to confuse people. And it's very irritating.
You do know that St. Augustine presided over the council that closed the Canon. He and St. Jerome got into a bit of a tiff over what should be in the Bible. St. Augustine more or less won when the Bishop of Rome (we now call him the Pope) sided with him. St. Augustine knew scripture inside and out. If he said it, you can take it to the bank.
First, Mass is SAID, not served. [pet peeve] I think you mean distribute Eucharist rather than saying Mass. Mass is the ceremony with a Consecration. No where does Dogma or Canon Law say that those in a state of mortal sin should be refused entry to a church for Mass.
Second, there is no demanding, pretty much ever, among the hierarchy. Each is left to their own judgment. Now, the Pope can suggest strongly that bishops do their jobs, but he's not a head of a corporation, nor is the church run like one.
The timidity on excommunication has its roots in the political maneuvering in Europe of the 16th and 17th centuries when it was abused for political purposes. It's become tradition to not repeat the overuse and seriously pursue other avenues first. It really should be a last resort after after pastoral approaches are made. In this country at this time, the pastoral approach just isn't going anywhere and many of us agree that to be serious about it, some high-profile people are going to need to be publicly called out. They've excommunicated themselves. This might be the only thing that will get their attention.
What happened to Iowa? I thought Iowa was pretty much liked the rest of us in Middle America but guess I am wrong.
As Raymond Arroya said, if he Democratic Party were to turn pro-life, they could rule forever. The bishops and many Catholics are on board with most of the Democratic agenda, and they hate to turn against a party when so many of them came from Democratic households. Archbishop Chaput was one. It is going to take some courage; the Church might be shunned by the powers that be as the Mormons are.
Too many.
But not all.
What “war”. “Catholics” inexplicably voted 52% for the infant-killer.
Although I’m sure genuine Catholics did not.
Please offer proof of the Pope's motivation for not following your instructions.
Hope this made you decide not to deliver that donation after all. The bishops will change when the money stops. They are now reaping what they’ve sown for the past 30 years and seem to just be getting the clue that maybe they are in a little bit over their heads. FOCA is too extreme even for most leftist bishops. Obama could not have been elected without our money going into CCHD and Catholic Charities which funded it to leftist political causes (not charities) for decades. Now the entire nation suffers and to a large degree the bishops themselves are culpable, and so are we if we keep up the gravy train.
That’s an interesting perspective and reminds me of a Scripture verse, something like, “if someone harms one of these, my little ones, better he were to drown with a millstone around his neck.”
Cradle Catholic here, so of course I don’t know exact words, chapter and verse! I’m sure one of you good Protestants can upstage me here.
Theoretically, if we really were courageous, we do have a moral obligation to stop paying taxes. But this means going to jail, how does a man decide who has a family to support, what is the higher responsibility? Interestingly, this is not pure speculation, Bishop Finn (pretty sure him) hinted at this possibility, of a radical change should FOCA pass and Americans be forced by the government to finance murder of the innocent.
That his leadership, secretly within the Church so it could operate, saved more Jews that ANY other nation or organization...does that indict him?
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