i have a question for the group. I go to our town message boards and there was a bunch of CINO’s there saying that the United States cousil of bishops have a differeing opinion than this priest and that in a nut shell are saying you can vote obama.
Do we know what their position is on this. I was always taugh that pro life candidates first unless they were completely unaccpetible, which as much as as dont’ like McCain i couldn’t...not that i would of voted for the Bama anyway.
So does any of you that are smarter than me know the bishops position on this.
First it’s important to understand there is not any such thing as “the bishop’s position”. Whatever the Church teaching is, that is what any individual bishop’s (or priest’s) position SHOULD be. They are in alliance with and have allegiance to the Holy Father and their Faith is exactly the same as what is in the Catechism.
Also, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is not a governing body, it is not a teaching body, it has no authority over you OR OVER ANY PRIEST. Any statement put out by the bishops does not have the authority of the Magisterium. Each bishop only has jurisdiction in his own diocese. His charter is to Teach, Govern and Sanctify. Any document from the USCCB, including “Faithful Citizenship” is not an “official” Church document and has very little relevance to anything except for Catholic “progressives” and the media to twist the words to their own liking.
OK, so that said, the problem we have is bishops are human and some are almost saints, some are jerks, some are ignorant, and some are downright heretics or apostates. They all get together and try to form a document and it gets watered down my committees and ultimately only confuses the faithful.
The “good” bishops (Chaput, Burke, Bruskewitz, Finn, Vasa, etc) are currently a minority among all the bishops in the country. There are pro-Obama bishops, and they are in error. Many dioceses have been infiltrated with “progressives” who promote global warming over pro-life. This is not Catholic teaching, it is wrong. Frankly, there is corruption and deceit within the Church hierarchy and that’s why you feel you can’t get a clear answer.
Fortunately most of the bad bishops (Mahony, Neiderhauer, Brown) are inching toward retirement, and how they got there is a very complex story going back to Vatican II, John Paul, the nuncio, etc. Benedict and Sambi have eyes more wide open in appointing good guys for the up and coming slots.
To try to keep this short, suffice it to say YOUR understanding is correct. A Catholic cannot support a candidate who deliberately promotes an intrinsic evil, particularly abortion. There is no obfuscation or wiggle room, just lots of fancy rhetoric from CINO’s like “Voice of the Faithful” and other such groups.
Bishop (I forget name, Wilton or something, black guy) who is jumping up and down with glee and saying it’s great Obama was elected is out of line. Yet this humble priest, a lone voice, is right on target.
I heard a priest once say all good reforms in the Church have always come from laity and priests, NOT from bishops. By the time one is a bishop, it’s very easy to become more concerned with power, prestige, or even just “keeping things calm” than really teaching the (controversial) truth, and saving souls.
The bishops’ opinion is, unfortunately, somewhat ambiguous, since the USCCB is basically split on how far to carry their opposition to Obama’s position. It doesn’t help that the USCCB is not really, except in membership, a
church body. It cannot bind individual bishops to its pronouncements. It is reported by Raymond Arroyo that a source told him that probably half the bishops voted for Obama or were in his favor. But at its latest meeting the USCCB for the first time was driven by the minority to make an unequivocal statement of opposition to the likes of FOCA and other pro-abortion policies advertised by Obama. What good this will do is a matter of question unless this wishywashy group is really willing to take further and stronger measures
after Obama assumes office and does act on his promised to the pro-abortion lobby. I may be surprised, since many bishops are now speaking out strongly, but I fear that most will just shrug and say, well we said we didn’t like it. It doesn’t help that so many central offices of diocese are full of pro-choice Catholics, especially nuns and ex-nuns who are crazed on the issue of women’s rights.
Here is the canon law:
Any Catholic who supports intrinsically evil acts (abortion, euthanasia, cloning, same-sex marriage, etc), votes for them, or otherwise financially supports or furthers their cause, cannot remain Catholic. Catholics must adhere to Catholic teaching or they separate themselves from the Church; the Body of Christ. Such Catholics are excommunicated by virtue of the acts themselves. A latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication is triggered when they support, enable, and perpetuate such obvious and egregious evil (Cf. Code of Canon Law, Canons 1364, 1398; Canon 1329, §2). They are in turn forbidden from approaching the sacraments as the result (Cf. Catechism of Catholic Church # 1463)."