Posted on 09/03/2004 2:21:12 PM PDT by AskStPhilomena
Archbishop Raymond Burke is giving St. Louis Catholics a way to vote for politicians who support abortion rights without commiting a grave sin or having to go to confession. In his latest clarification of controversial comments he made earlier this summer, Burke said Thursday he believes Catholics could vote for a politician who supports abortion rights as long as that's not the reason they are voting for the candidate, and they believe the politician's stance on other moral issues outweighs the abortion-rights stance. Previously, Burke had said Catholics who vote for a politician who supports abortion rights were committing a grave sin and must confess before receiving Communion. Those earlier comments - echoed by some other bishops around the nation - stirred up criticism from some area politicians, especially Democrats who felt the archbishop was overstepping his bounds and unfairly targeting Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee who supports abortion rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
This comes as a surprise as Archbishop Burke was one of my heroes when he said that a Catholic cannot vote for a politician who is pro-abortion, such as John Kerry. Was he bought off? Did billionaire John Kerry’s money play a part? I can think of NO other explanation that makes even the slightest sense.
Archbishop Raymond Burke says he is trying to give St. Louis Catholics a way to vote for politicians who support abortion rights without committing a grave sin or having to go to confession.
In his latest clarification of controversial comments he made earlier this summer, Burke said Thursday he believes Catholics could vote for a politician who supports abortion rights as long as that’s not the reason they are voting for the candidate, and they believe the politician's stance on other moral issues outweighs the abortion-rights stance.
How in the world is it possible that any other issue could outweigh the killing of 4,000 children EVERY DAY – 1.4 MILLION EVERY YEAR?
Maybe opening up another soup kitchen, or getting rid of the death penalty in which only a few are killed every year after they had a trial, which unborn children have NOT?
Or, could it be the Iraq war, which by the way Kerry said that he would AGAIN vote to go to war.
I can think of no other reason and neither can Burke to claim the garbage of "proportionate reasons."
Burke can now join Kerry as the country’s two greatest flip-floppers and innocent children will suffer because of it.
Burke is dead wrong and I will prove it to you. Suppose instead of 4,000 unborn children who are being killed every day, it was 4,000 born children, or adults. Would he still say that you can vote for someone who is an enabler of these killings as long as that’s not the reason you are voting for the candidate – that they believe the politician's stance on other moral issues outweighs their killing stance. OF COURSE NOT, which means that Archbishop Burke does NOT consider unborn children to be the equivalent of born children or adults.
May God have mercy on his soul.
I had nine bishops on my list of GOOD bishops, now there are only eight . One thing I do know for sure -- his flip-flop brings a smile to the face of satan. The following is Archbishop's Burke's phone and fax numbers.
Could not find an e-mail address but here is his webpage, maybe you can.
http://www.archstl.org
314-633-2222 FAX 314-633-2302
Frank Joseph MD
DFjosephMD@aol.com www.hometown.aol.com/dfjoseph/abortion.html
To the many Catholics who were re-directing their contributions to Bishop Burke's diocese: hopefully this latest flip-flop will finally convince you to stop supporting any novus ordo establishment.
How many more lessons do you need?
To say that one can NEVER vote for a pro-choice candidate has NEVER been the position of the Catholic Church.
Burke is saying EXACTLY what Ratzinger said.
Ratzinger is a flip-flopper too.
But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
I don't buy this. I saw Abp. Burke on EWTN recently, and he made it clear that only matters of life could ever qualify as "proportianate reasons."
LOL!! Well, I would expect an integrist to say that.
In that scenario, a Catholic who personally opposes abortion rights, votes for a candidate who supports abortion rights "for what are called proportionate reasons," he said.
In other words, each individual Catholic must weigh all the moral issues a candidate stands for alongside the candidate's position on abortion rights.
"And that is called remote material cooperation and if the reasons are really proportionate, and the person remains clear about his or her opposition to abortion, that can be done," Burke said.
So, a Catholic who does not support abortion rights can vote for a candidate who does support abortion rights without fear of committing a grave sin.
"The sticking point is this - and this is the hard part," said Burke. "What is a proportionate reason to justify favoring the taking of an innocent, defenseless human life? And I just leave that to you as a question. That's the question that has to be answered in your conscience. What is the proportionate reason?"
"The sticking point is this - and this is the hard part," said Burke. "What is a proportionate reason to justify favoring the taking of an innocent, defenseless human life? And I just leave that to you as a question. That's the question that has to be answered in your conscience. What is the proportionate reason?"...
"I think what I never did before was distinguish the two cases," he said. "One of the reasons I didn't go into it then, but have now, is that it is difficult to imagine what that proportionate reason would be."
And now, FReepers, you know...the rest of the story. Good day.
Oops. Looks like we read the same part at the same time. :-)
Candidate A is pro-abortion, but against euthanasia and homo marriage.
Candidate B is pro-euthanasia and pro-homo-marriage, but is against abortion, except in the cases of rape and incest.
A Catholic, in this case would quite possibly have proportionate reasons to vote for Candidate A. It's a tough call, but is at least arguable.
I would vote for the Republican.
Candidate B would be an odd duck, to be anti-abortion but pro-euthanasia.
There is too much missing from the Post-Dispatch article. I believe that the reporter has misrepresented Archbishop Burke's words.
He recently explained voting guidelines and "proportionate reasons" at a retreat and what is presented in the Post is nowhere near what he has said over and over again.
People should be more discriminating in their belief in the news of articles from left-wing rags.
Yes, Candidate B would be an odd duck. It's a theoretical example designed to show how there could be proportionate reasons to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, but that those cases are rare.
There are at most two good bishops. Last fall (or was it Fall of 2002? time flies) the bishop's conference had a vote on a heretical document on marriage with a politically-correct title about stopping domestic violence. The vote was 249 - 2.
We don't know who the 2 were or why they voted against it. We can hope that they were orthodox bishops who objected to the fact that the document contained language contrary to Catholic teaching, in which case we might have 2 good bishops. But they might have voted against it for entirely different reasons, maybe they were liberals who thought it didn't go far enough in overturning patriarchal structures of oppression.
Some folks on this forum remind me of an old uncle, who, in his dementia, thought everybody was crazy but him.
Ping
I think what I never did before was distinguish the two cases," he said. "One of the reasons I didn't go into it then, but have now, is that it is difficult to imagine what that proportionate reason would be
Another quote from the article
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