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

-- Sym (shmuelm4...) (webmail), May 14th, 2004 9:53 PM. (shmuel) (later) (link)

otm

this seems like a sideways ploy to scare roman catholics into voting republican for other reasons

i am REALLY leaning VERY STRONGLY towards supporting revoking the tax-free status of churches right about now, b/c of this sorta shit (and the christian right shit too).

I mean, celebrate the deeper meanings of the faith all you want, but don't pretend the church itself is some fluffy-bunny benevolent society.

(Also thanks to all who can say things on threads that my inarticulate ass can't).

I h8 myself and I want to die. I didn't ask 2b born. Oh why Catholic Church will u not let me die with dignity.

Ed, I expected to hear that from you. You've become predictable to me. Thanks, I guess. And I do hope you realize that I'm well aware of how half-truths can be edited down and pressed neatly in order to be presented as "facts". Just wanted to let you know that.

Or is it hateful to say the Church has a miserable history? I mean, c'mon, between actively promoting the Dark Ages by controlling literacy and keeping poor people uneducated, making deals with every bloody-minded monarch on the continent, sending children on crusades, punishing scientists for pursuing knowledge, torturing and killing Jews and anyone else who got in their way (and seizing their property in the bargain), and selling salvation for cash in hand, this is a pretty dark and bloody institution we're talking about. Luther, batshit crazy as he was, had some things right.

But that was a long time ago, my Catholic friends say. Yeah, OK. More recently, of course, we've had the dubious dealings with the Nazis. But even if you just want to talk present-day, how about the church's continued insane opposition to birth control in countries already full of malnourished kids, and where women are still struggling for basic equalities? Or how about the church's position on women in general, shutting half the population out of significant participation in the hierarchy? This is still a place that allows someone like Cardinal Giacomo Biffi to rise through its ranks.

And now the church is getting involved in the presidential election in the country where I happen to be a citizen, and I have every right as a citizen to tell the church to go fuck itself. I have Catholic friends just like you have secular friends, but my respect for them as individuals in no way extends to respect for the institution they choose to patronize. If it makes you feel any better, I have even less use for the Southern Baptist Convention.

they have moved from a church of berrigan and day to a church of ratzinger and this dude.

and dee, you cannot deny that the church has been connected to politicisng for most of its history, it uses the tools of state craft...ed is legitimate here.

blount if you want LATIN these days you'd have to check in at st. bravehearts to get it

In other words, fuck organised religion (unless it's the church of John Coltrane)

That aside, the silly bishop has mistaken the ballot box for the confessional and thinks it's part of his jurisdiction. Hello, in America we have had license to discount these people since oooh some point in the 1780s, right? With all due respect - and obviously I have none for a man who would make statements such as this - he can fuck...

a) right off.
b) me gently with a chainsaw.
c) up the lives of his nearest and dearest, but not mine or the nation's.

Colorado Springs is one of those places where a Republican stronghold is enjoying the best contract awards/corporate welfare the current government can organise, all the while bitching about Welfare moms and other social compassions with a price tag. Bishop would hate to see any changes to his tithe, clearly - less of a sweeties budget to spend on altar boys and the like.

(the other thing i got surprisingly chauvinistic abt was the virginia/minnesota civil war flag flap. i'm like, fuck you, come get it)

I think your church your priest and your pope would disagree with your devoutness there. You can't have your own version of Roman Catholic beliefs - you either agree with the church or disagree. If you disagree with the church on something like Thou Shalt Not Kill (which is exactly what your church thinks "pro choice" and euthaniasia equate to) then you are not a devout Catholic. Sorry.

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...

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.)

Otm, but earthly politics are just as much (rather more) imperfect

I think it's ridiculous for people to just up and quit because of a political disagreement.

I think it's ridiculous for you to pass judgement on people who do. I stopped going to mass b/c I realized I was supporting an organization who was directly working against one of my strongest beliefs (and something I was working against). is that political? It had nothing to do with my faith but the politics of the church and how they chose to interact with society outside of the church.

later I moved away from christianity all together because I stopped believing in its fundamental tenents.

Dee, you shouldn't take other people's grounded criticisms against the church so personally. if your individual beliefs are as strong and separate from the church as you say then why do such criticisms bother you so much?

I can read.

My comment to Dee was mainly out of concern for her. It's far too stressful to get upset over disagreements with things like religion. People are hardly ever swayed in their opinions and it can just leave you feeling angry and frustrated.

No Dan, like I said I was mainly interested in the article and skimmed the rest of thread. I hardly ever read these at all since everyone tends to act like idiots on them.

and i think it's interesting that the vatican, despite its seeming obstinance when compared to other contemporary institutions, is actually more impressionable than ever beore. it always seemed to be that this relative theological flexability (note word "relative") -- or the presumption of certain catholics of the need for such flexability -- is a function of the church's real loss of temporal power.

The letter is the first organized counter-punch by Democratic legislators since a handful of Catholic bishops set off an uproar in the church by declaring that they would withhold communion from politicians who favor abortion rights.

The letter's signers, including about a dozen who are considered anti-abortion Democrats, said the bishops are "allowing the church to be used for partisan purposes." They also question why these bishops made abortion a litmus test while ignoring politicians who voted counter to the church by endorsing the death penalty and the war in Iraq.

"They're helping destroy the church by dividing it on issues, and they're politicizing the Eucharist," said Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, one of the anti-abortion Democrats who signed the letter. "The bishops came out against the war, and I don't see them saying to all the people who voted for it, you can't receive communion because you voted for an unjust war."

The letter, dated May 10, was sent last week to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who is the chairman of a bishops task force asked to devise recommendations for American bishops on relations with Catholic politicians. A copy of the letter was made available to The New York Times.

The debate has taken off with the campaign of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the first Catholic candidate for president on a major-party ticket since John F. Kennedy. The tactic of denying the sacrament has been urged for years by anti-abortion groups like the American Life League, Legatus and the National Right to Life Committee, said Deal Hudson, publisher of Crisis, a conservative Catholic magazine.

"The fact that so many Catholics hold public office and flout church teaching is a scandal that many of us have waited a long time to see addressed," said Mr. Hudson, who serves as a consultant on Catholic issues to the Republican Party and the Bush White House.

He added that John Kerry had "earned excommunication" for speaking to an abortion rights meeting soon after speaking privately with Cardinal McCarrick.

Only four of about 300 American bishops have announced that they intend to deny the sacrament to policymakers who support abortion rights in their dioceses, according to a telephone poll of bishops conducted by Catholics for a Free Choice, a Washington advocacy group. Fifteen more have said that Catholic policymakers who support abortion rights should voluntarily abstain from communion. The vast majority, 135, said that they did not agree with denying anyone the Eucharist or that it would be the last resort.

Though few, the hard-line bishops have provoked anger and anguish from some Catholics who say they can be loyal to their church while voting for abortion rights.

Among the letter's signers are Representatives Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader; Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut; Carolyn McCarthy and Nydia Velázquez of New York; John D. Dingell of Michigan; Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts; George Miller of California; James L. Oberstar of Minnesota; Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, a candidate for president; and Delegate Madeleine Z. Bordallo of Guam.

"As Catholics, we do not believe it is our role to legislate the teachings of the Catholic church," the letter said. "Because we represent all of our constituents, we must, at times, separate our public actions from our personal beliefs."

In the letter, legislators asked to meet with Cardinal McCarrick and other members of the bishops task force.

"We wanted to look at the opportunity to open up a dialogue," said Ms. De Lauro, who worked with Representative Nick Lampson of Texas to design a response to the bishops. "People are really hurt by this."

Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for Cardinal McCarrick, said that he was open to meeting with the legislators but that it might take some time to convene the task force.

Cardinal McCarrick said in his column on May 13 in his archdiocesan newspaper that he did not favor denying the Eucharist as a sanction.

The Cardinal was harshly criticized recently in an advertisement paid for by the American Life League as capitulating to politicians who favor abortion.

In his column, Cardinal McCarrick said that in a recent visit to the Vatican "it was clear that so many of the highest authorities in the Church are in agreement with my position."

Leslie W. Tentler, a professor of history at Catholic University, said she could not recall a time when bishops debated disciplining so many politicians, and even voters, as the bishop of Colorado Springs did last week.

"The negative fallout could be terrific,'' she said. "I think it will alienate a great many Catholics. There's a lot of anti-Catholicism in the country that's surfaced, especially around the sex-abuse scandal. This plays into the oldest stereotypes about the church, which is that Catholics can't think for themselves. "

Mr. Hudson said he did not believe it would provoke anti-Catholicism as much as retaliation against other Catholic politicians, many of them Republicans, who are out of step with the church on the death penalty, the Iraq war or fighting poverty.

"What I fear is an internal battle using excommunication as a weapon, something like, 'If you are going to excommunicate our guys, we're going to excommunicate your guys,'" he said.

I had just spoke at a pro-choice rally attended by thousands of UT students the day before and the contrast made me realize I had no business attending mass. So I stopped.

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.