Just when you thought the Boston Catholic Charities-Mayor Menino imbroglio couldn’t get any weirder, it does. On Sunday, Ter-AY-za Heinz Kerry weighed in with her point of view, tut-tutting the hoi pollo who dare to question their betters.
She’s no paragon of virtue when it comes to Catholics in politics who claim their Catholicism impels them to do something they shouldn’t or who claim to be Catholic, but say that it has no bearing on the way they live their lives.
I am proud to live in a country where religious freedom is a fundamental belief, and where our elected officials are judged by their performance in office, without religious tests. Though the beliefs they hold in their hearts surely inform every decision they make, elected officials are properly judged by the policies they pursue, not by the religion they practice or by their adherence to the tenets of our own religious beliefs. So, I was troubled to read that picketers protested Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s address to the Catholic Charities of Greater Boston Christmas dinner earlier this month, criticizing the charity for honoring him, and mistakenly accusing the mayor of having “spent his whole career working against Catholic principles.”
Perhas she misses the point. The protesters were not picketing Menino’s policies, per se, but that he was being lauded as a great Catholic politician. It is Catholic Charities—and Menino by accepting their invitation—who precipitated this problem by making it seem that one can be a Catholic who advances abortion and gay marriage in the public sphere and still be eligible to praised for your Catholicism.
Technorati Tags: Catholic, politics, religious freedom
Now if the mayor was truly converted and Christ like he would say to Ms. Heinz and others like her who support him in his waywardness, “get behind me satan”, but, alas, that would probably REALLY “trouble” Ms. Heinz and we wouldn’t want that to happen. I’m just wondering exactly what happens to her when she finds herself “troubled”. I mean, does she break out in a rash, heart palpitations, does she get the vapors?..What?
She’s concerned about religious freedoms, but what about the freedom of people to peacefully assemble to protest.
freedoms for teresa and her kind but not the rest of us?
Ter-AY-za is how the name is pronounced in Portuguese.
Whatever Mayor Menino’s views with regard to church doctrine may be, I think it’s wrong to attack him or any elected official for his religious beliefs.
Nobody’s “attacking” the Mayor for his “religious beliefs.” What is being attacked is the failure to adhere to religious beliefs.
What’s the complexity here?
“Like many Catholics, though I try to follow the teachings of Christ as interpreted by the church, I find myself wrestling with church doctrine on some topics…”
Ah yes, now we’re getting to the meat of the issue. The “I’m a faithful Catholic, but…” approach. You see it’s not really about Mayor Menino at all, at all.
The Church is the problem – all that doctrine and stuff. You see if we’d just follow what Jesus taught – especially those bits about being nice and all lovey-dovey and stuff – we wouldn’t have the half of these problems.
Huh? You say Jesus founded the Church…? You mean …the Catholic Church? Really? And He promised it would never err…? No kidding! So none of its doctrines can be wrong then…huh?
Um, sorry I spoke…
Teresa’s comments prove that she doesn’t get the point and doesn’t know what it means to be a good, practicing Catholic.
Funny how we don’t see the adjective “Roman” in Ter-RAY-seh’s missive when she mentions “catholicism” or the “church.”
Just another AmChurch vs. Roman Catholic Church squabble.