I thought I might mention a news item today. Governor Joe Kernan of Indiana was asked to be commencement speaker at his high school in South Bend. It is a Catholic high school. The bishop of the diocese instructed the school to withdraw the invitation to speak because of his pro-choice stand.
I find it amazing that the church is willing to alienate someone like a Governor. While I can understand the recent edicts from the Vatican causing conflicts, this seems to me to be going out of the way to cause trouble. This is particularly true in a conservative state like Indiana which has a bit of an anti-Catholic bias to begin with.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy is really risking going the route of Catholic bishops in Europe, where even in the formerly most devout nations--Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Italy, Austria--they are losing influence and outright being ignored by Catholic politicians.

The situation could, if American Catholics, who have tended to be more progressive than a number of Protestant faiths in terms of their voting and political stands, could even go so far as in the wealthiest Catholic countries in Europe, like France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands (I believe that in the last three countries, despite the Reformation, self-proclaimed Catholics make up at least 40% of the population).

The Church really should attend to its own house, but attacking these Democratic politicians allows it to throw up a smokescreen, I guess, to win favor with conservative Catholics and divert attention from its gross neglect with regard not only to the child sex scandals, but also its failure to speak out more forcefully, ACCORDING TO ROMAN CATHOLIC AND CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS, on issues such as poverty, the war, women and childrens' (not just unborn foetuses') welfare, and so many other issues.

More power to Kernan, Kerry, McGreevey, Schwarzenegger, Pataki, Durbin, and all other Catholic politicians who strive to keep Church and state separate. Hasn't the Roman Catholic Church learned a lesson YET, after nearly nearly two millennia?

I left the Church over crap like this. You know what's really funny? Everyone talks about withholding Communion from Kerry, who supports gay rights and a woman's right to choose, yet no one ever brings up Santorum, who supports the death penalty. Hmm... wonder why.

Or the many other "pro-life" pols who are pro-death (which bugged the hell out of me back when I used to support organizations on that side of the fence -- the law-abiding ones, not the jailbirds -- but that's another story).

Anyway, considering the RCC's history, how serious do you think its professed opposition to the death penalty really is? (I'm talking about the organization as an institution, not individual members, whose views are probably as varied as anyone else's.)

Because its the same religious institution who came up with the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, etc etc. Killing and theatrics are the Catholic claim to fame. Its like Broadway.

I don't know much about Santorum, but one thing that makes me queasy about him is that when his wife had a still born child, which is a nightmare that many parents unfortunately have, he and his wife brought the dead baby home so his other children could say good bye.

Now, not being Catholic, perhaps this is what a hard core Catholic does, but jeeeez, that is CREEPY.!!

I am no fan of the current heirarchy of the RCC, but let's remember that the common Catholic on the street is NOT responsible for this type of decision-making, and we should not be trashing an entire church (which most of my relatives, more or less, still belong to) based on the insipidness of its leadership.

HOWEVER, I am disgusted and appalled by yet ANOTHER attempt by the RCC leadership to force its religion on an innocent America. One of the primary reasons the Vatican, years ago, forced a Catholic priest to leave his post as a Congressman was that there had to be a distinction between a priest, who must uphold Catholic doctrine in all cases, and a lay individual, who has the right and obligation to follow his/her own conscience in these types of matters.

Different religions disagree on issues like abortion and gay rights (not to mention the death penalty - of which the RCC has been a very vocal critic). Forcing Catholic politicians to vote only for Catholic-approved policies not only violates the separation of church/state AND the right of free will, it comes dangerously close to crossing the line between religion and political advocacy.

I wish (though it will not happen with the current regime in power) that the IRS would start investigating the RCC's tax-exempt status when the leadership pulls stunts like this, maybe that would put the "fear of God" into them. I also believe it is now completely appropriate to quiz ALL Catholic politicians on their stance of their church vs. their state. If they cannot represent the wishes, the views, the values of their ENTIRE constituency (and make informed, leader-like choices when there are conflicts) they should simply resign from office.

McGreevey says he won't receive communion

TRENTON, N.J. -- Gov. James E. McGreevey...said Wednesday that he will honor the wishes of the Newark archbishop and not receive communion at Catholic services.

All this makes me wonder how much the Church influenced Kennedy while he was in office. JFK was before my time and this was never covered in History class, so could someone clue me in?

FD, The 1960 election coincided with my starting 3rd grade in a public school after two years in Catholic school and I remember all the talk of "our first Catholic President" quite well. JFK made it quite clear he was not going to take orders from Rome - n.p.i. - by his political pronouncements as well as by his personal (mis)behavior. Then, as now, it was the evangelical Protestants who raised the most hell over the issue - which, of course, never materialized once he took office. There was no real influence over the JFK White House by the Church, other than the usual ceremonial stuff which was for the most part viewed as making up for lost time. Abortion didn't really become a major issue until the later '60s after the advent of The Pill, and Catholic pronouncements against both were much more muted at that time. The relative progressiveness of the Pope at that time, John the XXIII, had much to do with this, as the following article explains.

John XXIII: Time's 1962 Man of the Year

[ May 05, 2004, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: gmginsfo ]

I have long wondered why the RCC does not come down hard on the politicians that are pro death penalty. The RCC is against the death penalty. Many of the very same politicians that are against abortion are very, very pro death penalty.
Why the hypocrisy of the RCC?
As for the Newark Bishop and the governor of New Jersey not receiving communion, I know that the bishop in Newark was previously bishop in Peoria, Illinois. Let me tell you that is some kind of right wing place that believes Dubya is too liberal. I know a RCC high school teacher in Peoria and that bishop left a path of destruction there a mile wide.I heard from someone who has seen it that his crystal collection is awesome. Interesting.

From Andrew Sullivan in The New Republic, 5/4/04: Even the Catholic News Service, in a story dated 4/30/04, says In other words, the blatant politicization of the Sacraments is a violation of canon law.

[ May 05, 2004, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: redsoxbreath ]

I'm going to say this once again: why is this policy being directed only at Democrats? Why haven't any of the prominent Republican pro-choice, pro-gay rights Catholic politicians been attacked as McGreevey, Kernan and Kerry are?

Why hasn't one of these archbishops or bishops spoken out against Schwarzenegger, Giuliani, Pataki, etc.?

Doesn't this strike any of you as problematic, the freaking Catholic Church taking political sides like this? Don't these people have enough to deal with addressing the child-sex scandal they allowed to flourish for decades?

They're really spoiling for a Kulturkampf....

I beleive that US law states that any church with tax free status that spends 10 - 15% of their income on politics, can have their tax free status lifted.

Now shouldn't the Catholic Church qualify?

From Findlaw, Political and Lobbying Restrictions on Tax Exempt Religious Organizations: When it comes to lobbying on legislative or policy matters, the restrictions are less stringent: Those who are using the Sacraments to "Endorse or Denounce Candidates" are clearly skirting civil law, as well as canonical.

But they're not using the sacraments to "endorse or denounce candidates." Note that they are not intructing Catholics not to vote for these people.

Rather, they are instructing priests and lay members of the church about who should or should not receive the sacraments.

That is an internal Church matter that ought to be left free from government interference. Next thing you know, the principle you advocate here --remove the Church's tax exemption because you don't like the way it administers its sacraments -- would apply equally, for example, to a Jewish synagogue whose Rabbi refused to marry a Jewish candidate to a woman just because the woman wasn't Jewish. In short, it wold trample on the freedom of all religions to define for themselves who can and cannot be an adherent of the faith, and what the requirements for adherence are.

That doesn't mean the Church can't be criticized -- its hypocrisy in singling out pro-choice candidates as opposed to, say, candidates who oppose the Church's ex cathedra position on capital punishment (which is every bit as absolute as its ban on abortion), is reprehensible. But that which is reprehensible is not always illegal or unconstitutional.

Point taken.

Denial, denial, denial:

If they were to announce sanctions, then t hey would be in violation of the law, and someone should file for them to have their tax exempt status lifted.
All you need is ONE city to lose it, and the church will shut up quick.

At least in my chocolate covered world that is

But they aren't singling out ALL pro-choice candidates and elected officials, just the Democrats!!! This is PARTISAN!

By making votes as a public official part of the church's assessment of the politician's fitness to be a full member, they are clearly going beyond mere internal matters.

Let's take another hypothetical situation - the Catholic Church does not recognize legal divorce. If the Church were instructing members who are politicians to create laws that would limit or eliminate divorce (rather than simply telling the politicians they themselves cannot be divorced) it would be similarly problematic.

The Church has stated that it is grounds for ex communication to help a woman receive an abortion. Yet none of these politicians have been proven to do so. They simply will not vote specific ways on specific laws that affect non-Catholics. The church is getting involved in the political life of the country by inappropriate, and frankly unethical, means.

Not true. The press is only talking about the pro-Choice Democrats, but the Church's letter on the subject applies to ALL pro-choice candidates without exception. There are precious few pro-Choice Republicans left, but they do exist (Snowe and Collins of Maine, Chafee of Rhode Island). I don't know if any of the pro-Choic republicans are also church-going Catholics, but if they are, they're coverred by the Church's policy.

Why aren't you people whining about all those churches (Baptist, Methodists, etc.) where Democratic politicians for years have appeared at the Sunday services in front of the screaming and dancing masses, bashing Republicans, promising welfare, etc. How many times has the not-so-Reverend Jesse "I'll extort money out of some corporation today" Jackson gone up in front of an African American church crowd spewing politics? And what about Kerry and his appearances at such houses of worship? Such actions are blatant violations of the IRS tax code, yet no one here says a thing about it. At least the Catholic Church has a policy that forbids any political speeches during its masses. Its priests aren't allowed to advocate for a politician during their homilies.

Yet liberals (Clinton, Kerry, Jackson, Durbin, Obama, et. al.) can pop up all over other denominational churches and get political all they want, and the chicken-shit IRS won't do a thing, for they don't want to incur the wrath of Jackson and his corrupt extortion machine.

Oh! The hypocrisy!

"Screaming and dancing masses...promising welfare":

Sieg heil, MIB....

[ May 07, 2004, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

posted by MIB:

Who exactly is talking here about appearances in front of church groups (and since all types of politicians have appeared in front of these groups, I find it hard to believe you are trying to pin this on "liberals" - at a BAPTIST church?!)? We are talking about a denomination insisting on certain votes by politicians that reflect ONLY that denomination's views on a subject. This is not a denomination insisting on the following of a certain edict or set of edicts in a politician's PERSONAL life, but insistence that the politicians in question force all of their constituants to live according to that denomination's beliefs. If that is what the Catholic Church requires, then practicing Catholics must either leave the church or leave public office.

So the Catholic Church insists its members abide by its doctrine. And this is a big deal how? I'd be more concerned if the Church had decided to cave in to the pro-death extremists and change its doctrines based on the whims of a bunch of ferocious human haters.

I still don't see anyone condemning the churches that host all the Democratic politicians who are goose stepping to the ministers' beat.

Unless Catholic doctrine has changed pretty dramatically in the last 10 years (since I left the church), it does not include the maxim \"force others to believe as you do.\" In fact that would run pretty counter to the any conception of Christianity with which I am familiar.

And I realize you refuse to accept medical reality, but many people believe that a woman should and must have the right to an abortion when her health is in danger, not just her life. I personally don't accept the Catholic position that a woman must be forced to lose organs in order to maintain a pregnancy. I don't accept that a woman must be forced to continue a pregnancy when the child is doomed to die outside of her womb. Until recently, in fact, you and the Catholic church differed on abortion quite dramatically, it is only in recent times that the church has stopped insisting that a mother's life must be sacrificed to save her unborn child (even Randall Terry disagrees with this).

Catholic politicians must be free to make a distinction between their personal beliefs and actions in their lives and what is best for their constituencies. If the Church insists they cannot (as these actions imply), then they have a choice - their church or the Constitution. If they choose the church, they are unfit for public office, pure and simple.

Oh, and just a small note about Catholic doctrine since Vatican II. This is from a recommended Catholic reading list of important Vatican II documents:

As usual, the "judge" is misreading and conflating. Repuglican politicians, including W, have appeared before the same black church audiences that Herr MIB is talking about--and as usual, MIB only gives one part of the story. But this is totally different, as CPT notes, from a SPECIFIC RELIGION demanding adherence, from members of ELECTED OFFICIALS of ONE party, to its doctrine, which COUNTERS THE LAWS OF A FREE STATE. We don't live in a theocracy; neither party is like the Center Party of Weimer Germany,or even the Christian Democrats of Germany today--in the United States of America, official religions and the state are SEPARATE.

These moronic Roman Catholic hierarchs never learn. It's likely Catholic politicians of both parties, as well as the majority of non-Catholics, will continue to ignore them. But if they're spoiling for a Kulturkampf, they could end up like the clergy in Mexico, for example, who had to wait nearly a century for some semblance of a role in the official society, after having been banned and outright attacked because of their attempts to insert themselves into politics. Why these clerics aren't more concerned with the pastoral care of their flock, who are still hurting from the disgusting, widespread and inhumane sex scandals they presided over, or not addressing the issue of the "injust war," or the poor, etc., begs discussion.

As for MIB, he's making wild and outrageous accusations (bordering on racism) about people promising "welfare," though I doubt he could come up with ONE documented case of this. What HAS been documented was that the campaign manager of Christy Todd Whitman, a REPUGLICAN, admitted to having given black preachers "walking around" money in order to buy off votes for her. Doesn't sound like a Democrat to me.

[ May 08, 2004, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

And this coming from those who since Roe have refused to acknowledge the humanity of the preborn child (Oh! The hypocrisy! ); yet the same people rant and rave about the death penalty because, God forbid, an innocent person might get executed. But pity the poor, unseen, defenseless little baby, who is nothing but a condemned little boy or girl destined to be butchered by people obsessed with the culture of death in this country.

Ah, the last vestige of the Left: Accuse someone of being a racist, or on the border of one, just because said person dares to criticize the not-so-Reverend Jesse Jackson. When is someone going to have the balls to confront him? Even the IRS is afraid of him! The guy's instilled more fear in people than Gotti did.

For the record, FT, you won't find a less racist person than me around these parts, and it isn't because I cried when I saw Roots or Mississippi Burning, either. Leave your racist cracks at PhillyFan's door, not mine.

But it's not. If the edict had come down that any legislator who takes a stance opposite of Church doctrine is not welcome to take part in communion, I'm sure there would be outrage, but the charge of hypocricy would be a hard sell. But in targeting pro-choice legislators, and completely ignoring pro-death penalty legislators, the Church opens itself to charges of hypocricy of the worst sort. Certainly, there are those who would not be satisfied with anything short of a complete reversal by the Church in any number of its stances on abortion, contraception, homosexuality and even the death penalty. However, those of us with respect for the institution and the individuals who run it, are legitmately dismayed at this blantantly lopsided edict that uses the hammer of eclesiastic denial to force certain disobedient sons of the Church while letting other such sons off the hook without a mention.

You know, MIB, I just love sweeping generalizations. I also love the fact that in this country, we can disagree on moral issues, which is exactly what the Catholic church is demanding politicians refuse to do. Their way or the highway, that's all they care about.

You might be surprised that this aficianado of the "culture of death" you speak of actually agrees with you on most abortions. Abortion as a form of mere birth control is abhorent to me . That is my opinion, and I have a right to it.

But I disagree with you on just how "innocent" the "baby" is when he/she/it endangers a woman's health. I do not believe that a diabetic woman should be forced to continue a pregnancy even though she may lose her kidney function and go on dialysis. I don't believe my sister's friend should be forced to carry a fetus (oh sorry, "baby") that is doomed to die outside her womb. I don't believe my mother should have been forced to hemmorrhage for 18 hours (as she most definately was) because she failed to meet some arbitrary definition of "close to death." Those are the gray areas of the moral absolutes you love to throw around, and I expect and demand that politicians not only understand those gray areas, but also work to form laws that respect all belief systems. Just because you say you are right doesn't make it so.

Tell, me MIB, the Catholic church has also declared that ANY government that recognizes gay couples, in any way at all is "mentally ill." Are you comfortable with the church demanding that Catholic politicians vote according to that view - or would you rather be respected as a human being?

Well, even if you think there is some justification for bishops holding politicians to task, how about this one: A bishop in Colorado is stating that any Catholic who votes for This is WAY over the line. To inform your congregation how to vote, or threaten them with sanctions if they vote for people you don't like (but who may be anti-death penalty, pro-social justice, as good Catholics are supposed to be), you have ceased to be a church, and should lose tax exempt status, IMHO.

New York Times article

I've written to the NYT and the Seattle papers to voice my unease with the latest: it was bad enough to try to tell elected officials how to vote, quite possiblly in defiance of the people who elected them - now they tell voters how to vote, which presumably means that the Church has a right to ask and know how they voted. Clearly the Church is a danger to democracy, and does not uinderstand how it works.

Please write to your papers and take a stand on the Church interfering in American politics.

Nat

Problematic, no. Freaking, yes.

The Catholic Church...bringing "organized" religion to a whole new level.

posted by Nat:
Well, we may have to write an awful lot, because the Church just does not want to quit. This latest from Worcester:

Thankfully, the clerk in question is not buying it:

But don't worry, they don't really mean it, sort of:

Boston Herald Article

I am not sure where the Church will end on this one. It seems more and more like the heirarchy is completely resistant to living in peaceful co-existence with gay people, not to mention their neighbors who support gay marriage. As Josh Friedes of the Freedom to Marry Coalition says in the article:

Anna Quindlen has a good editorial in Newsweek this week (Chalabi on the cover) about this subject. She reverses the accusation of "Cafeteria Catholicism" by asserting that the Church heirarchy is guilty of the same charge by selectively targeting one "sin," abortion, in its decision to withhold the Eucharist. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this stance is directed mostly at Democrats whereas the pro-death penalty, gun-rightist, no-WMD-war-waging Republican Catholics are let off scot-free.

[ May 27, 2004, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: aquaman ]