Posted on 06/21/2009 7:50:22 AM PDT by presidio9
The Roman Catholic bishops who attacked President Obama's recent appearance at Notre Dame and who've called for pro-abortion rights politicians to be denied communion constitute a minority. Most of the roughly 275 U.S. Catholic bishops have kept quiet about both controversies.
Liberal Catholics claim this silent majority disagrees with strident public pronouncements from outspokenly conservative bishops. Most U.S. bishops, they say, think Notre Dame was right to invite the president—and that Catholic elected officials should receive communion regardless of their stance on abortion.
Catholic scholar David O'Brien makes the case in the latest National Catholic Reporter:
As Catholic bishops gather in San Antonio this week, they face some tough questions. Their most recent engagements with politics sharpened divisions within the church and left the bishops shaken, even embarrassed....
The shrill reaction of many bishops to President Obama's election and visit to Notre Dame reflected a grim image of an embattled church hunkered down against hostile enemies....
Only a few seem able to resist. One who does so is retired San Francisco Archbishop Emeritus John Quinn. As the ugly rhetoric heated up this spring, Quinn argued that even "where there are grave divisions as there are on abortion," Catholics should recognize that it is in "the interest of both the church and the nation to work together in civility, honesty, and friendship for the common good."
Here's my question to Catholics, like O'Brien, who allege that outbursts of anti-Obama sentiment by some bishops has left the majority of U.S. bishops " shaken, even embarrassed": Is there any hard evidence for that case?
O'Brien cites one retired bishop who publicly broke ranks with the anti-Obama-at-Notre Dame bishops. That's a thin reed on which to claim that most Catholic bishops reject the hard-line anti-Obama statements coming from some of their ilk. I'd like to see some real evidence for this theory, widely held by liberal Catholics. For me, the silence of most U.S. bishops doesn't suffice.
Lets say this once and for all....If you are a Catholic that supports Obama, then you are no Catholic. I dont know what you are, maybe you are a Pagan or a Satanist, but you are not a Catholic.
Anyone who supports a President that supports abortion and says they are a good Catholic is a dirty rotten low down sleazy floor flushing dirtbag.
Quinn is evil - or if not evil, so dysfunctional he’s the closest thing to it. He was actually removed because of his problems in SF, and under JPII, this means that he was truly, truly horrible. So I’m puzzled as to why they would use him as a spokesman.
Well, not really. This is the last gasp of the Jadot bishops, the old line “Spirit of Vatican II Uber Alles” guys who destroyed the Church in the US and therefore are the darlings of the journalistic world. They’re dying off, but not fast enough. Unfortunately, there are still enough of them - bishops of dwindling, bankrupt dioceses, but USCCB bishops nonetheless - to outnumber the new crop of good bishops, appointed by BXVI or at the very end of JPII’s reign when the US was given a new nuncio.
I bet that many do! Apparently social justice — whatever the hell that Marxist crap means — has an equal amount of appeal on Catholics as do pro-life issues. I would have to say that many more Catholics than not embrace most socialist ideas and disdain economic liberty and its outcomes. I could be wrong, but as a Catholic who enjoys discussing issues with others, this anti-market, pro egalitarian sentiment is what I’ve gleaned from fellow Catholics who I’ve talked to.
Don’t these clergy know what the Bible says about life? With Bishops supporting 0bama and his positions, of course their flock will, in most cases, agree with the conclusions their “leaders” have come to.
This is pretty much why I left the Catholic faith - it is built too much upon church hierarchy and its edicts, as opposed to letting people read and see God’s Word for themselves.
Absolutely right. And when the Bishops meet, let's surely hope that the Bishops who understand the reality of your statement truly help get any confused Bishops back to basics. Either get clear or get out, is my feeling.
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness
Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness
"...For from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretense of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy (or kingdom of darkness) may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies (that is, to the old wives' fables in England, concerning ghosts and spirits and the feats they play in the night). And if a man consider the original of this ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. For so did the Papacy start out of the ruins of that heathen power.
The language also which they use (both in the churches and in their public acts) being Latin, which is not commonly used by any nation now in the world, what is it but the ghost of the old Roman language?
The fairies, in what nation soever they converse, have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope.
The ecclesiastics are spiritual men and ghostly fathers. The fairies and ghosts inhabit darkness, solitudes, and graves. The ecclesiastics walk in obscurity of doctrine, in monasteries, churches, and church-yards.
When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another."
(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 1651)
According to the liberal geniuses who run the media an mold popular culture, I was once free to call myself a woman if I underwent drastic and permanent plastic surgery to my genitals and agreed to contine female hormone therapy for the rest of my life (and please pay no attention to the Y chromesome). Now, I don’t even need to do any of that any more. It’s all about how I identify myself. Just ask Chastity Bono. For liberals, who don’t really believe in a Higher Power, it’s all about self identification.
That argument doesn't fly here hon. The Catholic Heirarchy has had this one right for 2000 years. This is about individual bishops disregaring the heirarchy.
Now the US News & World Report speak for roughly 275 Catholic Bishops. I don;t believe one word from the MSM>
It certainly appears the liberal clergy, namely the American Bishops, will continue to ignore the politically incorrect beliefs of Roman Catholicism.
We Catholics should take comfort because Christ said the "Gates of Hell" will not prevail against His Church.
Obama speaking at Notre Dame was, without doubt, an abomination of desolation as described in the Bible.
The National Catholic Reporter is a dissident publication. It is not considered Catholic by real Catholics.
Clergymen of all denominations tend to keep quiet on the theory that it would mean less disruption in the collection plates. Alas, the church as business
What you are saying fits in with a classic book by Max Weber: ‘’The Protestant Reformation and the Spirit of Capitalism’’ (may not be exact title).
So what does that make the King of DE— Joseph Biden?
“Truth” is NOT determined by popular vote!
Is there a higher truth than the sanctity of INOCENT human life?
Thank you.
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