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
A better understanding of the totality of Holy Scripture, instead of just extracting select verses (a recent invention), and Sacred Tradition would go a long way toward improving one’s understanding of discipleship.
Get behind me Satan.
L
All people of faith need to join/stick together before it is too late.
Jesus himself forbade what you suggested. All you are looking for is a way to justify sin.
I just looked that Verse up. When does rendering to Caesar require a man to support financially the killing of innocents? Surely you know that the early Christians went to the lions so as not to offer worship to the Roman gods.....the died before they would render that particular thing to Caesar.
McCain was a gentleman but in this election that is not what was needed. He was handed the fear factor of Obama on a silver platter and took the nice guy approach. Cost all of us because he wouldn't lose being a gentleman.
You are correct. That would be nice if the Church made its anti-abortion message so it left no doubt.
McCain also talked about how Obama was going to raise taxes, but he never got around to responding to Obama's promise to lower taxes for the middle class (and most of us still realize that McCain would rather vote AGAINST a tax cut than risk having the 'Rats dislike him). Then McCain talked out earmarks but failed to mention that it is essentially IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of earmarks without a line-item veto.
McCain figured that Palin would win the real conservatives (conservatism DOES NOT work without social conservatism), but he also stood by silently while his RINO staffers stabbed Sarah in the back at every turn.
Surely you can read. Taxes aren’t worship.
Excommunicate them, too.
One cannot be Catholic and vote Democrat....period.
You summed it up very well! I agree 100%!
This is a LIE!
Yes. There is a reason why coveting neighbors goods is in the Ten Commandments. Collectivism is exatly that.
The Vatican even issued a paper on what they called “distributionism”...i.e. socialism.
I’m Catholic and this is MY biggest gripe with the leadership of Holy Mother Church.
No. It’s pretty well documented. Pius himself said he held back so as to save Jews. Let me see if I can find the quote again, because I checked before I posted. I don’t say things like that without cause.
Well, many of us will not just go meekly to the cattle cars.
I’ve kept my powder dry.
Many died by the hands of the National Socialists.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my favorites.
Did the abortion issue even come up in the debates? I’m sitting here trying to remember and I can’t think of one time it was even mentioned.
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