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Archbishop Burke: Catholics could not have voted for Obama with ‘clear conscience’
CatholicNewsAgency ^ | Washington D.C., May 13, 2009

Posted on 05/13/2009 8:03:20 AM PDT by GonzoII

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Archbishop Burke: Catholics could not have voted for Obama with ‘clear conscience’


President Barack Obama / Archbishop Raymond Burke

.- Returning to Rome after addressing the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Archbishop Raymond F. Burke said in an interview that a Catholic who knew Obama’s "clearly announced" agenda on life issues and marriage could not have voted for him "in clear conscience."

The archbishop’s comments came in response to questions from Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online during his flight from Washington, D.C. to Rome.

In her interview, Lopez remarked that Archbishop Burke had seemingly made very clear that Catholic voters "collaborated with evil" when they voted for Obama.

If one is a Catholic who voted for Obama, she asked, "do you have to confess this now that Mexico City, embryo-destructive funding, among other things, have happened?"

The archbishop responded that if a Catholic "knowingly and deliberately" votes for a person who is in favor of "the most grievous violations of the natural moral law," then he has "formally cooperated in a grave evil and must confess his serious sin.

"Since President Obama clearly announced, during the election campaign, his anti-life and anti-family agenda, a Catholic who knew his agenda regarding, for example, procured abortion, embryonic-stem-cell research, and same-sex marriage, could not have voted for him with a clear conscience."

During his campaign, President Obama said he was not in favor of same-sex "marriage" but he endorsed civil unions.

Archbishop Burke, who formerly headed the Archdiocese of St. Louis, is now prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. The office oversees the Roman Rota in hearing canonical appeals from dioceses around the world.

In other remarks in his interview with Lopez, the archbishop said that "consistent witness" of Catholics’ respect for the "inviolable dignity" of innocent human life and for the "integrity of marriage" can help change minds and hearts of those who do not see the wrongness of abortion or the need to safeguard marriage and the family from threats like same-sex "marriage."

In addition to prayer and fasting, he added, minds can also be changed by effectively communicating both the "most serious moral implications" of giving parents the right "to destroy the child they have conceived" and the implications of redefining the "fundamental nature" of marriage.

Asked about bishops’ actions toward self-described Catholic politicians who support legal abortion, Archbishop Burke said it was not his place to declare what a diocesan bishop should or should not be doing in a particular situation.

Those concerned about the University of Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama as commencement speaker, he said, should make their concerns known in writing to Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins and Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend John M. D’Arcy. They should also write Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, the office responsible in matters concerning Catholic universities.

In his other comments to Lopez, Archbishop Burke praised consecrated virgins as a "strong witness to the purity and selflessness with which we all should love one another" and as a "public witness to the love of Christ for all."

He said he was attracted by the possibility of directly serving Pope Benedict in his Vatican position. Asked to give his advice for his successor in St. Louis, Archbishop Robert Carlson, he declined. However, he noted he had congratulated the prelate.

Lopez noted that the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast audience was at its most supportive when he described the Notre Dame Obama invitation controversy as an "outrage." She asked the archbishop whether he worried whether his audience "waits for the headline-making applause lines" but misses the message about spiritual works and devotionals.

"The heart of my message was conversion of life; prayer and participation in the Sacraments; study and reflection; and action," Archbishop Burke said.

The "strong response" to his description of Notre Dame’s invitation to President Obama, he said, reflected "the degree to which faithful Catholics are profoundly scandalized by the proposed conferral of an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws upon a highly public figure who is pursuing so aggressively a program of procured abortion and same-sex marriage."



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bishops; catholic; cult; obama; prolife; vatican
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 Who is like unto God?........ Lk:10:18:
 And he said to them: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.
1 posted on 05/13/2009 8:03:21 AM PDT by GonzoII
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To: NYer; wagglebee; narses

Ping.


2 posted on 05/13/2009 8:03:53 AM PDT by GonzoII ("That they may be one...Father")
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To: GonzoII
...a Catholic who knew Obama’s "clearly announced" agenda on life issues and marriage could not have voted for him "in clear conscience."

A Catholic who claims they did not know Obama's agenda on life issues and marriage should have their voting rights revoked.

3 posted on 05/13/2009 8:06:16 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (Too many conservatives urge retreat when the war of politics doesn't go their way.)
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To: GonzoII

How anybody who calls himself a Catholic could have voted for this madman is beyond me. The man clearly believes that abortions should be allowed in all “four” trimesters . . . newborns should be willfully murdered if the “mother” doesn’t want the child. No option for giving the child to the father, to a grandmother, to an orphanage . . . just murder the little kid. I just can’t imagine how anyone could find it possible to vote for this twisted fool . . . even if they weren’t Catholic.


4 posted on 05/13/2009 8:07:23 AM PDT by laweeks (Can't get past the Bush Derangement Syndrome)
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To: GonzoII
Well that's about as clear as a bell. Thank you Cardinal Burke!

They should also write Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, the office responsible in matters concerning Catholic universities.

Does anyone know how to Contact His Eminence? I'm at work and fire walls prevent me searching.

5 posted on 05/13/2009 8:08:57 AM PDT by pgkdan ( I miss Ronald Reagan!)
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To: GonzoII

His Excellency doesn’t understand a lot of Catholics. They can rationalize their ways out of phone booths; tight shoes and tighter political spots.

Pity.


6 posted on 05/13/2009 8:09:40 AM PDT by RexBeach ("Do your duty in all things." Robert E. Lee)
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To: GonzoII

Have we a FReeper RC Priest who can verify if any Catholics are confessing to having voted RAT? Not who, just IF.


7 posted on 05/13/2009 8:12:29 AM PDT by JimRed ("Hey, hey, Teddy K., how many girls did you drown today?" TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: GonzoII

the Archbishop is absolutely correct, but the Church needs to start dealing with the large number of nuns and priests who were out there shilling for Obama over “social justice” issues.


8 posted on 05/13/2009 8:18:26 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Obummer is a baby killer which puts him on the same level as Adolf Hitler.


9 posted on 05/13/2009 8:24:46 AM PDT by Ev Reeman
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Obummer is a baby killer which puts him on the same level as Adolf Hitler.


10 posted on 05/13/2009 8:24:57 AM PDT by Ev Reeman
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To: Ev Reeman

But President Barry Ponzi can raise his nose higher in the air than Hitler could.


11 posted on 05/13/2009 8:34:49 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault ( Obama, you're off the island!)
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To: GonzoII

Conscience? What a quaint notion! In our contemoporary society, the notion of conscience has largely gone the way of other equally outmoded concepts such as character, integrity, responsibility, moderation, self-restraint, and countless other old-fashioned so-called “virtues”...


12 posted on 05/13/2009 8:37:44 AM PDT by Jack Hammer (here)
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To: GonzoII

If I were him I would’ve told them if they voted for him that as long as he was in office they needed to confess it over and over for all of the innocent blood he is spilling. I’ve always had a very deep feeling that there are some crimes like murder that are unforgivable and murder of the innocents is even worse.


13 posted on 05/13/2009 8:38:10 AM PDT by chris_bdba
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To: GonzoII; Salvation; narses; SMEDLEYBUTLER; redhead; Notwithstanding; nickcarraway; Romulus; ...
Catholic Ping List
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list


14 posted on 05/13/2009 8:47:02 AM PDT by NYer ("Run from places of sin as from a plague." - St. John Climacus)
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To: laweeks
How anybody who calls himself a Catholic could have voted for this madman is beyond me.

How anybody who calls himself a Christian could have voted for this madman is beyond me.

15 posted on 05/13/2009 9:09:25 AM PDT by Retired COB (Still mad about Campaign Finance Reform)
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To: GonzoII

This is a man with the fortitude to say it like it is!

Shame he’s not president of Notre Dame. There is no question of what would be done, because he has the guts to do it.


16 posted on 05/13/2009 9:20:02 AM PDT by maxwellsmart_agent
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To: pgkdan

http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bgroc.html

http://www.university-directory.eu/Vatican-City-State/Pontifical-Gregorian-University.html

Name (local): Pontificia Università Gregoriana
Type of Institution: University

Address: Piazza della Pilotta 4

City: Roma, Postal Code: 00187

Tel: +39 06 67015295

Fax: +39 06 67015419

eMail: sciephil[at]unigre.it

WWW: Pontifical Gregorian University


17 posted on 05/13/2009 9:21:15 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: RexBeach
That's because they followed the example of their Church leaders who pretty much remained silent when the rats first injected abortion rights into their party platform. It was at this time our spineless Bishops refrained from informing their flock that voting rat promoted abortion and should be considered sinful. I don't care in pol is Catholic and pro life, if he was a Dem a vote for him still helps party of death. They also failed to reign in their renegade priests who viewed Rome an inconvenient nuisance and ignored many Catholic teachings. We are now reaping the consequences of the poor leadership of the past.
18 posted on 05/13/2009 9:25:22 AM PDT by mimaw
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To: mimaw

I agree. This is what happens when poor leadership steers the ship, so to speak.


19 posted on 05/13/2009 9:27:04 AM PDT by RexBeach ("Do your duty in all things." Robert E. Lee)
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To: mimaw

Like Mahony for one!


20 posted on 05/13/2009 9:30:42 AM PDT by Ev Reeman
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