Posted on 11/21/2008 12:26:52 PM PST by mgist
By John-Henry Westen
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
The Democrats golden goose, Planned Parenthood, was founded by real racists trying to create “cleaner race”. 48,000,000 killed souls since Roe v. Wade and the media says nothing.
http://www.blackgenocide.org
I have a bad feeling about this adminstration’s DOJ in regards to the Knights of Columbus. I see the term “Hate Group” showing up on Lefty Blogs.
I applaude the Catholic Church for speaking out on abortion and Obama. I would hope all Protestant Churches start doing the same.
OH Monk and wagglebee check this outtttt
50+% of Catholics voted for O and the Church has financially supported ACORN. Note I am not bashing the Church but I am enraged that parishoners money went to ACORN & marxism. Obama will go after the Knights of Columbus as a hate group.
7 million for ACORN? Maybe the church should have stopped trying to get Obama elected....
I’m glad that the RCC sees FoCA for the intrinsic evil that it is.
It’s not about “guaranteeing rights” - it’s about killing as many babies as possible. There is no other reason to defund crisis pregnancy (abortion alternative) centers.
Call the Knights Templars as back up.
Chicken-eating protestants, but still bear swords.
;-)
In the not too distant future it won’t just be the Knights of Columbus...look at what the homosexuals are doing in California and Michigan. They are confronting Christians not only on the streets but in at least one case, in their own church.
Near Lansing last Sunday, homosexuals invaded a church service to throw leafletts around and chant various obscene words. Not that the mainstream media has noticed.
Guess such church invasions are not newsworthy.
I hate the mainstream media.
Rush tried to tell a Catholic that called that most of the Catholics that voted for 0bama probably had no idea was his position on abortion/infanticide was.
I don’t give them that charity - if they were ignorant, they were wilfully ignorant.
A war between Christianity and the new communist administration.
Wait. I think I see Generalisimo Franco moving North up I-95 towards the enemy city-state of Washington, D. C.
Or is it the forces of Augusto Pinochet?
At any rate, culture-warriors it looks like a full-blown revolution.
And Obomba hasn't even been sworn in yet.
Any “Catholic” member of Congress who votes for the Freedom of Choice Act should face immediate and very public excommunication starting with Pelosi and Biden.
ABORTION=MURDER! PERIOD!
There was a story posted here yesterday written by a police detective in LA who is Moromon (LDS). The story also had pictures. He said the gays almost stormed the huge LDS church in LA and probably would have burned it down. Some cops he overheard said things like “it would serve the Mormons right.” Really pathetic and frightening.
IMHO the Vatican probably views Obama in bibical terms, his views are very much aligned with what the bible says about the anti-Christ.
One of my neighbors, a Knight of Columbus” pulled the lever for Obama and said that Obama’s stand on infanticide was “made up”.
“Any “Catholic” member of Congress who votes for the Freedom of Choice Act should face immediate and very public excommunication starting with Pelosi and Biden.”
Yes and we should all call out the Bishops on it to make sure it happens.
That blacks voted overwhelmingly for a man that will put Planned Parenthood’s goals of black population reduction in overdrive is also mind-boggling. The Jewish vote was crazy, too. So much is crazy about the support for That One.
It is WAY long past time to let the excommunications fly. No politician who votes for FOCA should be permitted to pretend to be a Catholic.
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