[DonQ]

Excommunicating public officials is a bad idea that will eventually backfire. More than 40 years ago JFK had to campaign hard to overcome the public fear that a Catholic president would be taking orders from the Pope - at the time, the Catholic establishment in the US kept mum or actually corroborated JFK's statements that bishops wouldn't be bossing him around.

But now the Catholic establishment wants the opposite, presumably just with regard to abortion, but maybe the next step is to excommunicate public officials if they don't support public funds for parochial schools, or some other important issue (I am old enough to remember a time when doctors were legally forbidden to discuss even ordinary birth control with their patients). And they make this proposal publicly. And non-Catholics will have justification to pause at the voting booth and ask themselves if they dare to vote for a Catholic candidate who is being openly bullied to follow his Church's agenda instead of the interests and desires of the taxpayers who voted for him and pay his salary.

[Smocker]

Great Weasel post! Don't be a moral Catholic because the 'taxpayers' don't want you to be. Oh, but go ahead and keep calling yourself Catholic.

Either you are a Catholic or you are not. You cannot accept part of the dogmas and not others.

[secret garden]

So you're suggesting they should put their job before their religion and spiritual base? Why worry about eternal damnation when you want a good pension plan?

[A-teamMom]

I think the point is that these politicians should not consider themselves Catholic. It's not the Church dictating what they do. If they do not agree with basic teachings on the sanctity of human life, then they shouldn't come to mass and take communion. There is no room to be Catholic and pro-choice. That's not intolerance, it's living your faith.

[franky]

Let us not confuse J F K with Catholicism.

I remember opening day in the baseball season when Kennedy was President. It was in Washington and It was Lent and a Friday. Lo and behold Kennedy with a hot dog in his face plastered all over the newspapers in the U S.

It is time the Bishops stand up for the Church and stand up to the amoral, hypercritical pols who are bringing this country to its knees.