The Roman Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs has said Catholics should not receive Communion if they vote for politicians who support abortion rights , stem-cell research, euthanasia and gay marriag

Then where do these American Catholic bishops get off condemning politicians who support reproductive rights, and not commenting on those who support the death penalty or the Bush Doctrine on Iraq? If they are saying something like these things are wrong according to the Church's teachings, they have a point. However, I'm suspicious at how Church leaders are vocally opposed to the principles and practices the left wing tends to support, and silent on the ones that the right wing endorses.

because here in the US, Catholics were discriminated against for, like, forever.

The assumption that Catholics follow the orders of Rome is a commonly stated reason for this.

TAX THE CHURCHES

I am not a lawyer or Bill or Rights scholar, but where in the First Amendment does it say that churches and other religious institutions should not be taxed? (Answer: It doesn't, but the practice is deeply entrenched, and if someone were to try to fiddle with that, well-organized religious supporters would attack.)

I do think it's odd that US bishops etc. pick and choose their targets to fit in with their political beliefs - this is part of the reason so many people in the US are anti-religious - that the Right use religion to back up their bigotry. That, and the fact that too many people seem unable to seperate this use of religion from religion itself.

"in America we have had license to discount these people since oooh some point in the 1780s" - why couldn't you 'discount these people' before then? The British Empire was protestant...

This isn't true at all! The death penalty, the war in Iraq, economic justice issues - Catholics put other churches to shame when it comes to these things.

>>because here in the US, Catholics were discriminated against for, like, forever.<<

The assumption that Catholics follow the orders of Rome is a commonly stated reason for this.

And that assumption was based on nativist, anti-immigrant prejudice. I'm as annoyed as anyone by conservative Catholic bishops who can't keep their mouths shut, but I wonder just how much of this 'secularism' is really just warmed over nativism. And Kevin's right - that perception was part of nineteenth-century 'papist conspiracy' attitudes. It was really about political power, and denying political power to immigrants in cities.

The US is supposed to be a secular society, yes. It's also supposed to be a pluralistic society, and that means that an individual's understanding of his or her faith trumps someone else's arrogant mischaracterization.

TAX THE MORMONS!!!!!! TAX THEM LIKE THE WIND!!!!!
If it was up to me there would be a tax on excessive use of exclamation marks :-P

Also, 'devoutness' is a matter of faith, not political stances. My godmother is extremely devout in that she attends church several times a week, has Mary statues all over the house, has visited St. Peter's on a number of occasions. She's also pro-choice. I don't think that makes her faith any less 'devout'.

The Catholic church sends a conflicting message, I think when it also upholds the primacy of conscience. For many Catholics, this is the aspect of the faith that is most important to them.

You misrepresent Catholic teaching. Abortion is a sin according to church doctrine, but whether one sins or not is not a measure of one's faith.

A person's devotion to his church/faith can be measured by more than the number of prayers he says.
To speak openly of supporting legalised killing (whether by euthanasia, public execution or abortion) displays a lack of devotion to the church *and* the faith.
A devout catholic would consider it an obligation to endeavor to live his life in accordance with Christ's teachings. To support the killing of another for *any* reason goes against that, no matter how many Mary statues and trips to Lourdes you throw in.

Catholic doctrine, yes. But show me a U.S. Catholic bishop or other prominent church authority who has spoken against a politician or that politician's constituency for going against the church's teaching on these subjects.

NB: 90% of young Catholics I've met will not admit to really believing in transubstantiation. What they will admit to is being raised Catholic and that just being that.

NB2: Jews are way better about this whole issue. I assume it's just because the link between Judaism-as-theology and Judaism-as-culture/Hebrew-ethnicity is completely up-front and not continually danced-around. (I won't go into it but think about the difference in function between "theological" criticisms of Judaism and Catholocism, both of which tend to get read as attacks against a people more so than against doctrine: there are a lot of reasons why that reading functions better in the former case, and I think this is sort of one of them.)

Specifically, they're called Episcopalians/Anglicans.

Anyway, saying that "Liberal Catholics should just go Protestant" isn't really a tenable option, and is in fact pretty insulting. I find it offensive and I don't even consider myself a Christian!

OTM

Maybe that was true in the early days of the Anglican church, but the current version (at least in the States) has little resemblance to Catholicism, although some basic rituals are the same.

There are already churches for people who are basically-Catholic but disagree on some of the small points: they're called Protestants.

which is offensive to me and I'm not even Catholic. Get a clue.

Not that I'm fucking suggesting either of those things. All I'm saying, Stencil, is that there comes a point where a lot of rationalizing is going on to cover up a lot of cognitive dissonance, and I find that odd.

That said, on an issue as huge as killing people (which is exactly what the Catholic Church thinks of euthanasia, capital punishment and abortion) I don't think it'll be the church that shifts position.

x-post

I think any glimpse at any religion's history, and certainly that of the Catholic church, shows that religious dogma does not develop in a vaccuum. To say that "this is what the Church teaches, there can be no other" completely invalidates any evolution on the Church's part, which is so untrue and false as to be laughable. Tell me, does Catholicism still place the Earth at the center of the universe, with the Sun revolving around it?

Geez, Stencil, -- this has nothing to do with the thread topic and is a complete derail, but -- the faith of any Catholic who rejects a significant number of the church's teachings -- that's not "systematized!" That's gradually breaking out of the formal, organized teachings of a given church. It doesn't change the let's say "quality" of a given person's faith, it just means it fits less and less within the bounds of a system they can subscribe to. I made a flip comment about Protestantism specifically because some current-day progressive Catholics seem to have a belief system that occasionally resembles Protestant doctrine more so than that of their own church!

Which is why I also made a note about Catholicism as culture, because that, I think, is what keeps them around -- not "faith," but culture.

(on your last post)

And yes, it's precisely that "evolution" of religious doctrine that troubles me -- which, let me note again, is all I'm pointing out here. I'm not suggesting that anyone do a damn thing, just pointing out what I find odd about the situation. You can pick a banal physical/scientific issue like a geocentric universe, but something like abortion is defiantly not that -- for the Church, it's a specifically moral issue about the life and death of a human soul, which makes it something of a major point. More importantly, it makes it a point that's not really adaptable. And -- for me, which is all I'm saying here -- I find something intellectually untenable about a "moral" side of faith that is completely mutable depending on the feelings of subscribers to the faith. That's exactly what the Pope would say, and I can't see that I'd argue with him.

Good point well made there, maybe the Pope will suddenly reconsider that whole Thou Shalt Not Kill thing that's been so troublesome for so many years. After all it only makes otherwise Really Nice People into Evil Sinners and where's the value in that?

Coming soon "Worship As Many False Gods As You Like - Ours Aint That Great Anyway (and while you're at it have a wee butcher's at your neighbour's HOT missus)"

They already did 'reconsider' it - the church did not always condemn abortion. Also, you overemphasize the role of 'the commandments' in this. The church's stance on birth control reveals where they're actually coming from with this abortion stance, and the position on birth control will probably change in this century. In fact, Pope John Paul I was rumored to be considering reversing the church's stance before he died.

This site has loads of facts and explanations.

And I suspect that the reasons people remain Catholic are 1) cultural and 2) there are certain things in the church that are very strongly emphasized that are not so strongly emphasized by the mainline churches. I also feel that as long as there is pressure on people to 'assimilate', people will continue to cling to what distinguishes them from the majority.

Dan profoundly OTM.

Kerry's comments on why she stopped going to church mirror mine, pretty much. If I were to go back, which will probably never happen, it'd be to an Episcopal Church with views I found compatible with my own (although this is a nebulous thing - it's not like 200+ people always agree on everything).

I think there are more differences between the Episcopal Church and the Catholic Churhc than there are similarities, though.

(I'm going to do some work.)

The ALL and these other activist 'pro-life' Catholics are really just conservatives first, Catholics second. They're doing this to attack Kerry.

I read ALL's magazine - it is horrible. There is not a lot of religion in it, apart from 'this-and-such abortion clinic closed after we prayed it would close'.

I'm like a week late on this, but...yeah, I know Catholics were discriminated against. No kidding. They still are, some places. I have a nephew being sent to an evangelical Christian school by his born-again step-mom who's learning things like, "Catholics are evil and the Pope is the Anti-Christ." (The rest of the family is not happy about this, but the only person who could veto it is his dad, and he doesn't want to fight with the step-mom.)

The problem I have as a secular liberal is this: I very much believe in the right of everyone to worship as they see fit and believe anything they want. But I also very much believe in the separation of church and state. The human history of church involvement in statecraft is not a pretty one. The Catholic Church is just one example of that unprettiness, but it's a pretty honking big one. I think American Catholics, because of their history as a minority in this country and their sense of distance from the church's history as a geopolitical power tend to discount that history and that power. And as I see the church trying to reassert its traditional geopolitical role, I find it alarming. To the extent that some elements of the Catholic hierarchy are trying to get in on the growingAmerican theocratic movement (which is being driven by evangelicals, of course), that's a big big problem. And it pushes my general live-and-let-live attitude toward organized religion to a breaking point.

I would never tell anybody to leave their church because they disagree with it, any more than I would tell anybody to leave their country because they disagree with their government. On the other hand, liberals in the Catholic Church who are not actively involved in trying to change the assorted things about its doctrine that they find objectionable become de facto supporters of that doctrine -- the Church's power comes from its congregations, just as a democracy's power comes from its people. Yes, this is all politics and has little to do with individual faith. But politics matters. American liberal and moderate Christians of all denominations have allowed the faith's most extreme wings to become its dominant cultural voice, and the only people who can rein that in are other Christians. And to the extent that liberal and moderate Christians fail to do so -- or at least to try, hard -- then they end up complicit in the theocratic agenda being pursued in their name.

I know it would be nice to believe you could just belong to a little church, worship according to how you personally perceive your God and your faith, and not have to take responsibility for what some political ambitious dickheads in Rome and Denver say to get their names in the paper. Unfortunately, it isn't that easy.

Bush to Give Pope Presidential Medal of Freedom
2 hours, 52 minutes ago

ROME (Reuters) - President Bush will award Pope John Paul the Presidential Medal of Freedom Friday, the highest U.S. civilian award, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the pontiff was being honored for "years of fighting for freedom and for his important moral voice."

Bush is to meet the Polish pope at the Vatican Friday.

The pope strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and last week publicly condemned torture as an affront to human dignity, seen as a veiled reference to American abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

In November the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bi-partisan resolution to encourage Bush to give the 84-year-old Roman Catholic leader the medal for his contribution to the fall of communism and his defense of freedom throughout the world.

The last pope to receive the medal was Pope John XXIII, who was given it posthumously in 1963.

President Harry Truman founded the award in 1945 and President John F. Kennedy re-introduced it in 1963.

giving the pope a medal - what's next, lecturing mccain about sacrifice in war?

On his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.

In a column posted Friday evening on the paper's Web site, John L. Allen Jr., its correspondent in Rome and the dean of Vatican journalists, wrote that Mr. Bush had made the request in a June 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. Citing an unnamed Vatican official, Mr. Allen wrote: "Bush said, 'Not all the American bishops are with me' on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism."

Mr. Allen wrote that others in the meeting confirmed that the president had pledged aggressive efforts "on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican's help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken." Cardinal Sodano did not respond, Mr. Allen reported, citing the same unnamed people.

A spokesman for the Vatican declined yesterday to disclose the contents of the meeting, which followed the president's brief meeting with the pope. Jeanie Mamo, a spokeswoman for the White House, said: "They had a good, private discussion. They discussed a number of priorities of shared concern, and the president's and the Vatican's positions on these issues are well known."

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the report "mind-boggling."

"It is just unprecedented for a president to ask for help from the Vatican to get re-elected, and that is exactly what this is," Mr. Lynn said. Linda Pieczynski, a spokeswoman for Call to Action, a liberal Catholic group, said, "For a president to try to get the leader of any religious organization to manipulate his fellow clergymen to support a political candidate crosses the line in this country."

But some with experience in Roman Catholic politics said they were hardly shocked. "Any head of state who goes to the Vatican will attempt to present a case," said Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, a professor of theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York. Monsignor Albacete, who has served as a translator for Catholic officials in meetings with heads of state, said: "If it is done in a very rude way, then the Vatican will remember and you won't get invited again. But if it is done in a diplomatic way, that is why they go to the Vatican anyway. It is not an act of devotion. It is a political thing."

Mr. Bush's campaign is betting heavily on churchgoers in his re-election effort, and how Catholic voters apply their faith to politics is emerging as a focal point of the race. There are an estimated 63 million Catholics in the United States. Bush campaign pollsters have said that in the last election, people who attended church regularly voted disproportionately for Mr. Bush, though Catholics were much more evenly split than Protestants were.

Once a reliably Democratic constituency, Catholics have become divided, with traditionalist Catholics making common cause with conservative evangelical Protestants on social issues like opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. But Mr. Bush is also a born-again Methodist who is likely to face a Roman Catholic opponent, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. And the pope and other Catholic officials have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration over the war in Iraq.

In the last six months, a handful of Catholic bishops in the United States have already weighed in on the presidential race by threatening to withhold communion from Catholic politicians who disagree with the church's stance on abortion, a group that includes Senator Kerry.

Other bishops, however, have said that threatening to withhold communion goes too far, and the pope has warned of "the formation of factions within the church" in the United States. The bishops are expected to take up the matter at a closed-door conference this week in Colorado.

Pope John Paul II praised Mr. Bush last week for "the promotion of moral values" but reminded the president of the pope's "unequivocal position" on Iraq.

Jason Horowitz contributed reporting from Rome for this article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7926694.stm

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The girl, aged nine, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, became pregnant with twins.

It is alleged that she had been sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather.

The excommunication applies to the child's mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.

The pregnancy was terminated on Wednesday.

Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother's life is at risk and doctors say the girl's case met both these conditions.

Police believe that the girl at the centre of the case had been sexually abused by her step-father since she was six years old.

The fact that she was pregnant with twins was only discovered after she was taken to hospital in Pernambuco complaining of stomach pains.

Her stepfather was arrested last week, allegedly as he tried to escape to another region of the country.

He is also suspected of abusing the girl's physically handicapped older sister who is now 14.

Intervention bid

The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday.

Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.

The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that the law of God was above any human law.

He said the excommunication would not apply to the child because of her age, but would affect all those who ensured the abortion was carried out.

However, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.

While the action of the Church in opposing an abortion for a young rape victim is not unprecedented, it has attracted criticism from women's rights groups in Brazil.

Go for it scummy Brazilian Catholic Church.

I don't even think the Vatican would attempt this.