Posted on 11/07/2006 7:29:19 AM PST by NYer
MADISON, Wis. (CNS) -- As the Nov. 7 election approached, Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison warned his priests that he would consider "any verbal or nonverbal expression of disagreement" with church teaching on same-sex marriage "as an act of disobedience, which could have serious consequences."
The bishop directed that each Mass during the Nov. 4-5 weekend include a 14-minute tape-recorded message from him in place of the homily. The message urged Catholics to support traditional marriage and to oppose the death penalty and embryonic stem-cell research.
A constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages and an advisory measure asking whether capital punishment should be reinstated were before Wisconsin voters Nov. 7.
Bishop Morlino said his office had received reports "that in isolated cases priests have refused to cooperate with my requests in terms of preaching in defense of marriage and have even expressed disagreement with my clear wishes in this matter."
"At the moment I am giving the priests involved the benefit of the doubt," he added. "But it would be less than fair for me to leave any lingering ambiguity in anyone's mind about my seriousness in this particular matter."
In a note on his diocesan Web site, Bishop Morlino expressed disappointment at an ad placed in the Wisconsin State Journal Nov. 2 by several dozen Catholic families and individuals who called the bishop's stand on the proposed constitutional amendment "dangerous and wrong."
"We Catholic families of the Madison Diocese want to publicly express our disagreement with your position statement ... in which you equated the right of a loving gay couple to enjoy the legal benefits of a civil union similar to marriage with a 'Satanic plan to destroy family life ... and our country from within,'" the ad said.
"We believe you have done a great disservice to the church and mission of Christ by issuing such an incendiary call to arms," the ad continued. "We believe our Christian faith requires us to stand up for the rights of those who choose commitment over convenience, love over prejudice, and family stability over selfishness."
Bishop Morlino said he knew some of the ad's signers, "and I respect and love all of them in the Lord, as women and men of good will."
"I pray that God will heal their consciences," he said, adding that some of the ad's claims reflected misunderstanding of a talk he gave last March.
"Let us pray together that the bitterness which this whole matter has stirred in the hearts of some will be healed soon by the power of the Holy Spirit," the bishop said in the Web site note.
In June, the heads of Wisconsin's five Catholic dioceses issued joint letters in support of the marriage proposal and against reinstatement of capital punishment in the state.
In his tape-recorded message, Bishop Morlino said there were "three major sources of confusion" in the diocese at the present time. "No Catholic or anyone who claims to be with us should cause confusion," he added.
One source of confusion was from those who say opposition to same-sex marriage is discriminatory, "unfair or unloving," the bishop said. "I am so tired of reading that. ... Nobody has a right to redefine marriage."
On the death penalty, some argue that it "is necessary to protect people from heinous criminals," Bishop Morlino said. But instead of making society more safe, capital punishment "increases the climate of violence and terrorism," he said.
The stem-cell question is causing "the most confusion," the bishop said, with ads depicting a young child with juvenile diabetes and implying his or her only hope for a cure came from embryonic stem cells.
"That's baloney," Bishop Morlino said. "The people who like baloney are having a feast."
Embryonic stem cells "have not caused one disease to be cured or one injury to be healed," he said, while adult stem-cell research has had many successes.
"And why are we being pressured on this?" the bishop asked. "There are big bucks in this for someone."
Some Catholics walked out of Masses while the tape recording was being played.
In the Wisconsin governor's race, Democratic incumbent Jim Doyle supports using state funds to promote embryonic stem-cell research, while Republican Mark Green opposes it. On the death penalty, Doyle opposes its reinstatement and Green supports it. Both Doyle and Green are Catholics. The stem-cell issue is also playing a role in some legislative races.
Stem-cell research is on the ballot only in Missouri, where the Catholic bishops have strongly opposed an initiative that they say will make human cloning a constitutional right in the state.
"Does the church's total opposition to Amendment 2 mean that we are insensitive to those who believe such research may one day be the answer to their debilitating diseases? Not at all," said a Sept. 30 letter from the state's six Catholic bishops. "On the contrary, we support the aggressive pursuit of stem-cell research which respects the moral law and has genuine promise."
A group called Catholics for Amendment 2 urged approval of the stem-cell proposal, saying that "over the years churches have struggled with many moral issues surrounding science and medicine."
"We have wrestled with the issues surrounding this initiative and conclude that our support for Amendment 2 is wholly consistent with our faith," said the group, co-chaired by former U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton and Dr. Virginia Weldon, a retired professor of pediatrics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Its sad that he has to point out what should be obvious.
Any priest supporting the legalization of institutionalized buggery (falsely called 'homosexual marriage') should be presumed to be a poofter, and dismissed from the clerical state.
http://www.madisondiocese.org/bishop/morlinobio.html
Biography of Bishop Robert C. Morlino
Fourth Bishop of the Diocese of Madison
Bishop Robert C. Morlino
Robert Morlino was born December 31, 1946, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. An only child, his father, Charles, died while he was in high school, his mother, Albertina, in 1980. He was raised in northeastern Pennsylvania, graduating from Jesuit High School in Scranton.
He entered the seminary for the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, and was ordained to the priesthood for that Jesuit Province on June 1, 1974.
His education includes a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Fordham University, a master's degree in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, the Master of Divinity Degree from the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass., and a doctorate in Moral Theology from the Gregorian University in Rome, with specialization in moral theology and bioethics.
Father Morlino taught Philosophy at Loyola College in Baltimore, St. Joseph University in Philadelphia, Boston College, the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College. He served as an instructor in continuing education for priests, religious and laity and as director of parish renewal programs.
In 1981, Father Morlino became a priest of the Diocese of Kalamazoo and served there as Vicar for Spiritual Development, Executive Assistant and Theological Consultant to the Bishop, as Moderator of the Curia, and as the Promoter of Justice in the Diocesan Tribunal. He served as administrator of a number of parishes, and as rector of St. Augustine Cathedral in Kalamazoo.
Father Morlino was scheduled to begin a full-time faculty appointment as professor of theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit when, on July 6, 1999, Pope John Paul II appointed him the Ninth Bishop of Helena.
Bishop Morlino was appointed the Fourth Bishop of Madison on May 23, 2003. He was installed on August 1, 2003.
Bishop Morlino currently serves as chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
He is past chairman of two committees within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. From 2001 to 2004, he chaired the Bishops' Committee on the Diaconate, which deals with matters concerning the ministry of permanent deacons in the Church in the United States, and, from 2001 to 2004, he also chaired the Ad Hoc Committee on Health Care Issues and the Church, which assists the bishops in responding to moral and theological questions surrounding specific health care situations in their dioceses.
Morlino is a rising star. I pray Cardinal George has a long and fruitful life remaining, but I would love to have Morlino as Archbishop of Chicago one day...
All I got Sunday was a leaflet under my windshield wiper to vote yes to the marriage ban....
Most Reverend Robert C. Morlino
702 S. High Point Road
P.O. Box 44983
Madison, WI 53744-4983
And if you have the pluck to write an admiring letter to Madison's daily newspaper:
Wisconsin State Journal
P.O. Box 8056
Madison, WI 53708
I applaud this Bishop's positions, but he is not accurate in citing the death penalty as something we are bound against.
I am in board with the good bishop except on this point, "The message urged Catholics to ... to oppose the death penalty ...
I have listened to the Bishop talk. When he talks about capital punishment as being immoral he restricts himself strictly to the "protection of society" argument in it's simplest expression, that is, that a person kept incarcerated until death can, though his own actions, no more be of harm to the innocent than can a dead man.
To me it is obvious that justice consists of persons getting what is deserved. The Ideal is Justice, blindfolded, weighing Truth with her scales, and wielding the sword. At the same time Justice must mete out compassion and generosity more than is strictly deserved.
It will always be true, as they used to say, that some people need killing. There is a time for every purpose under heaven.
We had two walk out last Sunday. They will fit nicely into the American Episcopalian Church.
Something that disturbs me is that we see that our prisons are set up in a way that the very bad people still end up harming others. Now while fellow prisoners are not typically thought of as being "part of society", they are put in harm's way, as are guards and members of the prison administration. But yes, I agree with you that justice to society is often ignored in the discussion.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.