Catholic Church asks Tom Daschle to stop calling himself a Catholic

Weekly Standard (via Matt Drudge) ^ | April 17, 2003 | SB00

[SB00]

TOM DASCHLE may no longer call himself a Catholic. The Senate minority leader and the highest ranking Democrat in Washington has been sent a letter by his home diocese of Sioux Falls, sources in South Dakota have told The Weekly Standard, directing him to remove from his congressional biography and campaign documents all references to his standing as a member of the Catholic Church.

This isn't exactly excommunication--which is unnecessary, in any case, since Daschle made himself ineligible for communion almost 20 years ago with his divorce and remarriage to a Washington lobbyist. The directive from Sioux Falls' Bishop Robert Carlson is rather something less than excommunication--and, at the same time, something more: a declaration that Tom Daschle's religious identification constitutes, in technical Catholic vocabulary, a grave public scandal. He was brought up as a Catholic, and he may still be in some sort of genuine mental and spiritual relation to the Church. Who besides his confessor could say? But Daschle's consistent political opposition to Catholic teachings on moral issues--abortion, in particular--has made him such a problem for ordinary churchgoers that the Church must deny him the use of the word "Catholic."

[MrPeanut]

"Catholicism is the province of the Pope, the Bishops and the parish priests"- Catholicism might be the province of the Pope-but American politics IS NOT. I respect your beliefs, but American troops fight for freedom from any one belief.

[cpforlife.org]

You just hit the nail on the head with regards to unity. Each local bishop is in charge of these critters and should be following the teachings of the Pope. Let’s pray other bishops will follow this example. It is 30+ years past due.

I believe part of this current story is explained below:

Excerpts from the March 2003 mailing from
Priests for Life


Dear Friend of Priests for Life,

One of the most frustrating things you and I must deal with in our fight to end abortion is the fact that so many politicians who call themselves Catholic are also the most ardent proponents of abortion-on-demand! !

Well, thanks to the courage of Pope John Paul II, that may be about to end.

This past January the Vatican released a statement entitled: Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life. At the very opening of this statement, even before it addressed its concerns, the Vatican stressed:

"This Note is directed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church and, in a particular way, to Catholic politicians and all lay members of the faithful called to participate in the political life of democratic societies."

But please take note. Although it has a message for the Ted Kennedy’s and Tom Daschle’s and Gray Davis' and all "Catholic" politicians who promote abortion,

... it was also directed at YOU and every lay Catholic in America.

That's because you "participate in the political life" of our country by the very fact that you are a citizen of the U.S. and, as such, are an eligible VOTER!

For this reason, this wonderful and timely clarification of the grave error that Catholic
politicians engage in when they promote abortion is intended for ALL Catholics here in the U.S.

It is for that reason that I am proud to announce the following initiative:

Priests for Life is launching a massive nationwide campaign to rally all faithful
Catholics - both clergy and laity - to sign a "Pro-life Commitment Pledge"

No longer can a Catholic politician or voter claim ignorance on this grave issue.
The Vatican has made it crystal clear:

A person can be EITHER Catholic… OR pro-abortion ... but NOT BOTH!


Pro-Woman Pro-Family Pro-Life


P.O. Box 141172. Staten Island, NY 10314. (718) 980-4400. Fax (718) 980-6515
e-mail: pfl@prietstsforlife.org. Website: http://www.prieststsforlife.org



Page two


Today I urge you to be one of the very first Catholics to sign this "Pledge."

Already bishops are publicly calling on elected politicians to either withdraw their support
for abortion or refrain from receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion. Kansas City Archbishop
James Kelleher has done so with regard to Kansas' pro-abortion Catholic governor, Kathleen
Sebelius. Years ago Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska made headlines when he
issued similar challenges to all Catholic legislators in his diocese.

In addition, Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento has publicly chastised California's
Catholic governor, Gray Davis, for his ardent defense of abortion. Bishop Weigand did so as he
publicly thanked Msgr. Edward Kavanagh, the priest in his diocese who had called on Governor
Davis to repent of his pro-abortion views. The priest had made it clear that the Governor was in
conflict with the faith.

This is important because it is a strong affirmation of what Priests for Life is all about! As I
have been saying all along:

If priests take the initiative and become more courageous in upholding Church
teaching on abortion, more bishops are likely to do the same!

That's why Priests for Life works to make the almost 50,000 priests in America
bold and uncompromising preachers of the Gospel of Life!

In fact, several months ago Priests for Life sent a "Clergy Commitment Pledge" to every
priest in the nation. Thousands of priests have responded. Each one promises to preach about
political responsibility and to call on politicians to be faithful to the defense of life.

Again, this is work no other pro-life organization in America is set up to do.

And like I said, as more and more priests take the "Clergy Commitment Pledge" and become
more outspoken in defense of human life, more and more bishops will do the same!

In the meantime, however, the Vatican's "Doctrinal Note" has presented the LAITY and
Priests for Life with a golden opportunity to take the lead in challenging all Catholic politicians
and voters to embrace the Gospel of Life and withdraw their support for the killing of innocent
unborn babies.

Let me tell you. Incredible as it may sound, one out of every four voters in the U.S. is a
Catholic! In actual numbers, it is estimated that well over TWENNTY MILLION Catholics vote
in Presidential elections.

If we could get every one of those Catholics to sign our "Pro-life Commitment
Pledge" and carry it out in the voting booth, that in itself would give us the
numbers we need to bring an end to legalized abortion in America.

[MrPeanut]

There are 20 million Bathists in the Middle East. Look at what they did when they had their way.

[jwalsh07]

Sorry but you're conflating issues. A Bishop telling a wayward Catholic that he should refrain from calling himself a Catholic has even less to do with "establishing religion" thna your comment about our warriors.

[cpforlife.org]

What are you refering (compairng) to? Please be more specific.

[NeoCaveman]

What is not OK is demanding that Daschle retract the claim. That is beyond his pay grade.

Playing canonical lawyer is above your pay grade.

[oldironsides]

They all get a pass. That is the problem I have with my New England Democrat relatives. Patrick Kennedy is pro abortion and my Catholic relatives back him. They actually work for his election. I confronted them before the last election.
It is something I will never understand.

[TomServo]

It is something I will never understand.

There will come a day of reckoning.

[TopQuark]

There were also anti-Jewish pogroms in the Rhineland in the 800s, in England in the 1100s

Those pogroms left us with the oldest record (certainly not the first occurrence) of the blood libel (that Jews kill a Christian teenager to make Matzos). By modern "standards," the number of deaths was indeed small. This is because the Jews were expelled. You approach is similar to measuring the number of dead people in a morgue by medical bill and concluding that there are only few bodies there. Surely, the bills are low: all people are dead. You measure the "striving" of the Jews is a similar fashion.

However, localized outbreaks of hostility and violence over a period of more than a thousand years do not sum up a Church or a culture.

This is nothing short of preposterous. Firstly, numerous laws and writings of Church Fathers codified the second-class status of the Jews from the IV century onward. Secondly, although some priests spoke against pogroms and some even actively hid the persecuted, the Church has spoke against or persecuted the offenders. IF this is an abomination to the Church, why nothing was done about it --- even if one excused the impulses and occurrences as "local." The inquisition could burn a person at the stake for something esoteric as the shape of the Earth, but not for murdering hundreds of Jews --- never once was such thing recorded.

Yes it does amount to the Church, and yes it amounts to culture. Both are living human institutions, however, and undergo changes. There were better times and worse times. Not until Napoleonic wars were the Jews recognizes as citizens in France, which was the first to do so. Not until this Pope did the Church say that the Jews as a people are not responsible for Christ's death.

And forgive me for using your own words --- you were the one to throw the first ad hominem with calls for "growing up" --- but it is your argument that is beyond contempt: the Jews were striving because they happen to have physically lived there. So do people in prison. And not all Jews lived in Europe -- only those who remained alive.

The second part of the argument is also unbecoming for a person of your caliber: they preferred Europe to the Muslim world. Not true at all. They indeed strived in Spain: not until XVIII-XIX century did the Jews have centers of learning even comparable to those that they had in Muslim Spain. If you want to jump to modern history, as late as before WWII, Baghdad was 40% Jewish. No capital of a European country has ever even come close.

You argument lacks both internal consistency and validity.

Your attempt to paint me with an anti-Semitic brush is duly noted, however. You are definitely NOT anti-Semitic; I have not a speck of doubt about that.

Your love of the Church might have deprived you, however, of some objectivity; the recently increased attacks on it might have made you particularly resolute in defending it --- even in the areas were no defense is possible. I do not know that with certainty: there is nothing shakier than trying to attribute motives to people.

But I assure you that, judging from your remarks and the strength of tour conclusions, you are definitely misinformed in this particular participation of history.

Finally, you attacked Onelifetogive in response to a question --- a tactic that is almost always doomed. In this particular case, the question may have been motivated by a number of reasons, the least of which is implying that you are anti-Semitic. Even you suspected that (in which you rightfully could feel indignation), the rules of both logic and debate dictate that you ensure this to be the case. Instead, without a single clarifying question, you resorted to an ad hominem. Perhaps, you are not having the of days, but after such an unjustified attack you are hardly in a position to admonish someone on the alleged absence of logic. At least not today.

I personally understood Onelifetogive' question much more locally, so to speak. There are some truths verified by such magnitude of facts, that they are commonly viewed as self-evident. Among them is that Holocaust happened. Among them is also the fact that the Inquisition persecuted the Jews. For many, and apparently not for you, the degree of self-evidence of these two facts is similar. Which then can prompt the question, Is denying one similar to the other? Is the Spanish Inquisition similar to denying the Holocaust? And that is what Onelifetogive has asked. I see no animosity --- whether general or a specific accusation of anti-Semitism --- in this question.

I hope you'll have a better day tomorrow.

Yesterday, I celebrated the Passover and thanked G-d for sustaining me and bringing me to reach this season --- in contrast to the great many of my forefathers who have not gotten out alive of various Egypts. May you never know the full degree of your error.

I wish you and your family a very happy Easter. My special prayers (and thanks) go to those in your family who are now overseas.

[Tiger_eye]

"Catholicism is the province of the Pope, the Bishops and the parish priests"- Catholicism might be the province of the Pope-but American politics IS NOT. I respect your beliefs, but American troops fight for freedom from any one belief.

I'm glad you mentioned the American troops because the fact is that approximately 375,000 active duty personnel are Catholics which accounts for 26.82%. Another 204,000 reservists are Catholic.

We Catholics have always carried more than our fair share of all the fighting in all the wars this country has ever had.

We have always and we will always fight for this country, so you can sleep well tonight knowing that Catholics are out there defending you.

[MrPeanut]

A Catholic Bishop is telling an American Politician is politics is wrong. Where does he stand on pedophilia?

[jwalsh07]

A Catholic Bishop is telling an American Politician is politics is wrong. Where does he stand on pedophilia?

Daschle opposes pedophilia and is deeply saddened that President Bush failed to prevent same.

[MrPeanut]

"We Catholics"? Thats funny, I was always taught that America was freedom from one point of view. What are you- Catholic-American, or just a plain American?

[Torie]

If Daschle is not Catholic, what jurisdiction does the bishop have over him as to what Daschle says? Would not it have been better for the bishop to opine that Daschle's bio stating that he was Catholic was false and misleading, as opposed to ordering him to revise his bio? Do you not think that the bishop has a tin ear?

[sorroworechoes]

Thanks,
I definitely agree that we all have a duty to be morally coherent.

[edwin hubble]

"I was always taught that America was freedom from one point of view. "

1st amendment protects freedom to have a point of view.

Any one you choose.
No establishment of religion by government.
No restrictions of the right to practice any faith.
There you go.

[MrPeanut]

I'm sorry, but I think all established religion is dangerous to human freedom. Any group of people who think theirs is the the only way leads to nothing.

[Theodore R.]

In South TX nearly all the Catholics call themselves "prolife," but most voted for George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Michael Stanley Dukakis, Walter F. Mondale, Albert A. Gore, Jr., and shall I say his name, the first Hispanic (no, black) president.

[Theodore R.]

I suspect that Senator Daschle could privately care less if he were excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Why do people want to stay in an organization when they opose its critical teachings? In Daschle's case, he is primarily interested in Catholic votes in predominantly Lutheran SD. If the liberal politicians were excommunicated, do you think that would affect the rank-and-file members? They might turn against the church if they saw their favorite liberal politicians being "picked on" by the bishops!

[MrPeanut]

I always thought Bishops were concerned with "higher God things". If they really believed in the omnipower of their God, why would a little politician concern them? I guess they have earthly doubts.