Bishop of St. Augustine, FL on Pro-Abortion Catholic Pols

St. Augustine Catholic (diocesan magazine) ^ | 07/11/2004 | Bishop Victor Galeone

[Dominick]

I have been to Knights for Life, and put the link out on our Council email group.

Good group. Our Church and the Council put in a Shrine to the unborn. It is amazing the amount of teaching value it has.

[livius]

He's ours! We got him first! LOL! Actually, I was wondering if he will eventually be moved on to a bigger diocese. Not soon, I hope, because we still need him here.

We didn't have a lot of scandals under the old bishop, fortunately, but we did have a lot of laxity, bad practice and pretty dubious teaching. Bishop Galeone has been here about four years, but he's been really effective in making changes, and he's popular with both the laity and the clergy (except for a couple of them who had gotten used to doing whatever they wanted to under the old bishop). Vocations are also up.

[Dominick]

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Many ordinaries permit good works as a substitute.

NCCB Complementary Norms on Penance and Abstinence of November 18, 1966:
Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday, EVEN THOUGH WE HEREBY TERMINATE THE TRADITIONAL LAW OF ABSTINENCE AS BINDING UNDER PAIN OF SIN, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat. We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law.
(This quote by way of Fr. Mateo)

So you can abstain as a devotion, but if you don't it is not sinful. You should substitute a good work in it's place at a minimum.

[Colofornian]

This is a case where Protestants have come alongside the Roman Catholic community in helping to forge the initiative and reinforce the few bold leaders in the RC faith.

What do I mean? It is not a coincidence that the very locales where RC bishops are most forthright happen to be places like St. Augustine, FL and Colorado Springs, CO. Guess what broad-based St. Augustine-based groups are at the forefront of this issue?

That's right, Randall Terry and his two thrusts of The Society of Truth and Justice and Operation Witness (www.societyfortruthandjustice.com and Operationwitness.com). If you go to those web sites, you can read an open letter to Catholic bishops on this matter...signed by hundreds of folks including Terry. Terry is back on the air as a radio talk show host in St. Augustine.

And, of course, Colorado Springs bosts more evangelical ministries per square inch than anyplace in the world.

[cpforlife.org]

Thanks Brother.

And please feel free to spread the Monthly talking points for Council Pro-Life Chairmen to use.

As I travel and communicate on this I am sadly learning that few Councils even have a Pro-Life Chairman, and of the Chairmen out there few ever speak at Council meetings.

Hopefully http://www.KnightsForLife.org can help.