As hinted earlier this week, Catholic World News is reporting today that four of the six lay members of a new commission appointed by Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley to review parish closing plans have donated to John Kerry and other pro-abortion politicians. One of them is the head of Catholic Charities Boston. I find it disturbing that of all the Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston, four of the six chosen for such an important lay role, a highly visible role, should so visibly flout the teachings of the Church on abortion.
And if Archbishop Chaput is to be believed, and if one can assume they’ll vote for the candidates they give money to, they will be in an objective state of mortal sin after the election. As with the National Review Board’s pro-abortion members, this sends a very bad message to Catholics and is a cause of scandal to the faith.
Honestly Dom, this isn’t even a matter of faith. Kerry is on the record stating he believes life begins at conception. As soon as someone makes that statement, it becomes an issue of justice and not faith. I don’t care if he’s a hypocritical Catholic. He could be Hindu and it wouldn’t matter. Faith and religion literally becomes inconsequential at that point.
If life begins at conception. Then arguments against abortion or stem cell research are arguments for justice.
Jaime
Wearing his “Yes I’m really voting for Peroutka” button
Kerry is pretending that the humanity of the unborn child is not an objective fact but a religious doctrine.
An objective fact can be the basis of public policy, and every reasonable person can be expected to recognize it. He’s blowing smoke about religion as if we were talking about the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity, which nobody could reasonably demand non-believers assent to.
When will some atheist pro-lifer like Nat Hentoff get a chance to confront him on this?
How can you question Kerry? Don’t you know he was an altar boy?
And he fought in Vietnam too.
And got three medals!
And never wa..waa…waaa…wavers!
The liberal relativist’s view:
There are no rules, and that’s a firm rule. You hear me??!!!!!
Whatever you did for the least of my brothers..you did to me….but Lord…I couldn’t impose your views on my fellow citizens….you just don’t understand.
I don’t know the answer.
But I do know that a lot of “Catholics” reject the teaching of the Church on abortion and on contraception. I mentioned before the information I got concerning polls taken at a Catholic college campus in Worcester, MA, where 95% of the students reject the teaching of the Church on contraception and only 10% are fully in accord with the teaching of the Church on abortion. I have read that the percentage of Catholics having abortions is not much different from the general percentage in the USA, and in one book, it claimed that the percentage was somewhat larger for Catholics. Does anyone think that the percentage of Catholics using birth control is much different from the general population? My personal opinion is that if Catholics were to get themselves in line with the teaching of the Church, especially after four years of Catholic college education, it would be a lot easier for a politician to be 100% pro-life, all nine months, with no exceptions. But when you have Catholic priests, such as Father Drinan, who was a US congressman, supporting partial birth abortions, and when you have Catholics in large numbers rejecting the teachings of the Church (including those who have received their education at Catholic colleges), and when you have the Jesuit priest president of a Catholic college claiming that the pro-choice position of a certain public figure he had invited for a commencement address was arguable within Catholic theology, then it is not so easy for a politician to take the opposing view.
Now here’s where I’m confused. (Of course, I just got done reading the comments on the CWN link, so I presume I’m to be forgiven. For being confused, I mean. Nice bunch we’ve got there. Sheesh.)
Domenico states:
Now if only he felt the same way when he was the ordinary over John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.
How do we know he didn’t “feel” this way?
How do we know that he didn’t preach that receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in an unworthy manner—that is, for my friends in various comments boxes, in the state of mortal sin—was, well, a sin?
The reason I’m confused is because I’d been subjected—perhaps not the reverent word—to Cardinal Law’s sermons on receiving the Eucharist worthily, off and on, since about 1986.
Oh, but Kelly! Kennedy and KERRY!
Yeah? What about ‘em? I’ve seen Kennedy (the Ted guy) receive Communion exactly once. That was at the funeral Mass of his mother. (About a hundred years ago.) I remember it very well because I was at the Cathedral rectory at the time and the phones were flying off the hook. The big question wasn’t about abortion at all, but about the senator’s questionable marriage. (My reaction was to simply forward the calls to the chancery. Good for me.)
On September 11, 2002, Cardinal Law didn’t have a whole lot o’ friends in secular high places (surprise!) and yet he wanted to celebrate a memorial Mass. Understandable. Kennedy was the only one who agreed to come. I seated him personally. He’s a rather large man, or at least was at the time. I warned him about tripping over this wacky step when he left the pew for Communion and guess what? He told me it wouldn’t be a problem…he wouldn’t be leaving the pew.
Now, I’ve seen Kerry receive Communion, though, and at the Cathedral. When? Why at Archbishop O’Malley’s Installation Mass, that’s when.
Which brings me to another confusing thought. Somewhere on this blog—and I’ve tried in vain to search it but can’t find it which doesn’t mean much, no offense—but there’s a statement from Dom regarding O’Malley vs. Law regarding abortion. It had, if I recall correctly, and I do, to do with Phil Lawler’s attempt at unseating Kennedy from his senate seat. If I recall, and I do, fairly accurately, Dom made the point that at some point during this election attempt, Bishop O’Malley (I believe he was stationed in Fall River or someplace at the time) “threw his arms around Phil” while Cardinal Law ignored him. The point was, if I recall, and I do, that therefore O’Malley was The Pro Choice Guy whereas Law, Who Ignored Phil, was…well, questionable.
So I’m a bit confused. Again, how do we know that Cardinal Law didn’t feel the same way when he was the ordinary over John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.
Now if only he felt the same way when he was the ordinary over John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.
How do we know he didnxander]]>
manwithblackhat@yahoo.com
http://manwithblackhat.blogspot.com
205.130.230.13
2004-10-15 12:58:54
2004-10-15 16:58:54
What the faithful have the RIGHT to, specifically, if access to the sacraments of the Church, inasmuch as they are a necessary means of grace, and by extension, their salvation. This includes the Holy Eucharist. It also includes Penance.
Ah, so morality is based on popular opinion—what a Protestant idea.
However, most pro-contraception/pro-premarital sex Catholics are honest about their position, I think. They’re not pretending to believe what the Church teaches on these topics.
As for the students’ attitudes at that college – I wonder if they’re actually being taught about what the Church teaches and why. Most Catholic colleges are called Catholic only by tradition – the theology faculty refuse to get a mandatum, and enjoy playing fun “what if” games about gay marriage and women’s ordination, rather than actually teach the truth.
How is it that Kerry uses his “faith” to take money out of my paycheck and give the money to somebody else?
He is a socialist, like most Democrats, who uses tax policy to transfer wealth around.
How did his faith prompt him to vote against the $1000 per child tax credit?
Answer: he only is there to aid in the murder of babies not in rearing them.
when a statue of Our Lady toppled over during the final Mass last Sunday
Check out the photo of that whole spectacle, which was on the front page of last Monday’s Globe.
“Morality is based on popular opinion….”
When public opinion is brought up as an argument against a Church teaching, I can’t help to think that Jesus was so popular that he was crucified.
Why don’t we help these people out by raising some money for them and getting say the FSSP to send them a priest – a real priest who will be able to teach them a thing or two. Or course they could be spending their time raising money themselves, writing letters to get new priests from say Nigeria or Rwanda or sending even one young man to the seminary. Have they done any of these things or are they too busy forming new “lay” groups and trumpeting their deep devotion to the newspapers?
MS
What bothers and amazes me is that so many people—this group only being the visible tip of the iceberg—can so fervently cleave unto the Democratic Party, even at the expense of their faith.
It means that their faith (small-f) is in the Democratic party. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.” (Matt. 6:21) They have so firmly attached themselves to this political party that their loyalties (their hearts) are tied to it even when such a tie defies their Church and their capital-F Faith.
What it clearly means is that their Faith is second to their party affiliation; that their belief in the next life is second to their desire to be comfortable in this one; that their service is to a worldly master supercedes their service to The Divine Master.
When will our Archbishop speak clearly? Obviously, these people have been able to delude themselves that voting for a man who promises a pro-abortion litmus test for federal judges is not sinful. When will their legitimate shepherd, the pastor of this flock, the cure of their souls, educate them (stingingly, if necessary) to the mortal peril in which they have placed themselves?
What bothers and amazes me is that so many peopleminent” in the secular sense o’ the word?
In Boston anyway, most “prominent `Catholics’” are “pro-choice.” The record is clear.
Archbishop O’Malley lives a stone’s throw away from the not-so-“prominent” Catholics in this city. Hell, at any given Sunday he can visit them at either the 8:00, 9:00, or 11:00 AM Masses practically by rolling out of his bed. I just can’t figure out why he didn’t ask their opinion. It would’ve been given, free o’ charge.
lls an unborn child. (Why else would he say that he’s personally opposed to abortion?)
]]>
4246
2004-10-14 10:28:29
2004-10-14 14:28:29
open
open
whither_kerrys_faith_now
publish
0
0
post
Dear E.N. Courage: the problem is, the Holy Father has not (to my knowledge) called for the abolition of the death penalty; to have done so would have been to negate two centuries of the Church recognizing that the state may indeed resort to capital punishment. If I am not incorrect, what the Holy Father DID call for is a reduction in its usage, seeing that most societies have the means to keep violent criminals from re-offending (thus, I presume, satisfying one of the reasons the Tradition has always understood for the state’s legitimate use of this ultimate punishment). The other two reasons (for punishment of the offense, because of its presumed gravity, and for the establishment of justice in the eyes of society) were not addressed by the Pope.
What I was calling for from our Archbishop was clear and unequivocal language about the danger of voting for a candidate whose embrace of abortion (and, one might remind others, of abortion at ALL stages of gestation and into infanticide) knows no bound. What I’d like to see is our Archbishop lead his flock in this practical matter. And I’m not talking about “danger” as regards this lifetime. Archbishop Sean is charged with safeguarding our souls unto everlasting life.
While people of good will may legitimately disagree with each other—and with the Holy Father—on the issues of the just war theory, or on capitalism vs. socialism, or even on the application of the death penalty, what we MAY NOT legitimately disagree with is that abortion is murder. What we MAY NOT pretend is that the problem of abortion—by which 1,500,000 human beings are murdered each year in the United States alone!—is in any wise proportionate to any of the other legitimate issues about which we may or may not disagree.
The direct taking of innocent human life by abortion is NEVER acceptable. John Kerry supports abortion at all stages of gestation. John Kerry has said that he’d make the support for so-called abortion rights a litmus test for any judge he nominates to the federal judiciary. John Kerry even claims to believe that life begins at conception—and he still supports the taking of nascent human life! He is a manifest sinner; he plans to continue in sinning against humanity. To vote for him is to enable him to continue (increase?) the direct taking of human life to the tune of 1,500,000 per year!
Can you REALLY compare that to support for the death penalty?
Even if you could, the Church does not.
Father Elijah,
I believe that our Archbishop and the Church speak clearly, on both abortion and capital punishment. Abortion is murder. Capital punishment is not murder. Abortion is a much larger problem than capital punishment.
On the other hand I know that the Pope personally intervenes in high profile death penalty cases in our country, pleading for the life of the person about to receive the ultimate punishment. This fact makes it clear to me that capital punishment is over utilized in America today.
Here is what I can say as a point of comparison. Both democrats and republicans are capable of putting political ideology ahead of their faith.
“Father Elijah” writes:
What I was calling for from our Archbishop was clear and unequivocal language about the danger of voting for a candidate whose embrace of abortion (and, one might remind others, of abortion at ALL stages of gestation and into infanticide) knows no bound.116′;l[56]=’ 114′;l[57]=’ 101′;l[58]=’ 98′;l[59]=’ 111′;l[60]=’ 114′;l[61]=’ 95′;l[62]=’ 100′;l[63]=’ 110′;l[64]=’ 101′;l[65]=’ 114′;l[66]=’ 101′;l[67]=’ 118′;l[68]=’ 101′;l[69]=’ 114′;l[70]=’:’;l[71]=’o’;l[72]=’t’;l[73]=’l’;l[74]=’i’;l[75]=’a’;l[76]=’m’;l[77]='”‘;l[78]=’=’;l[79]=’f’;l[80]=’e’;l[81]=’r’;l[82]=’h’;l[83]=’a ‘;l[84]=’<'; for (var i = l.length-1; i >= 0; i=i-1){
if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ‘ ‘) output += “&#”+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+”;”;
else output += unescape(l[i]);
}
document.getElementById(‘eeEncEmail_W51GcewA6F’).innerHTML = output;
//]]>
His secretary will, if you ask nicely, print off your note which will be read, sometime or another.
Kelly <——-betting most will Bravely Chose the E-mail route (sheesh) and already apologizing to Father Kickham
Kelly—I don’t understand the sarcasm. Wasn’t a post above, of yours, “calling” for the same sort of accountability?
And as to my real name and parish—depending on what computer I’m on at the time, I come in as either “Fr.Elijah” or “Fr. Jim Clark,” the latter of which is real. And there’s only one of me in the diocese.
What I’ve said, I think, is common sense. I’m not convinced that phoning the Archbishop is the impetus he needs to take action—this is a no-brainer. If you’re convinced otherwise, I hope you’ve phoned him about the above-entitled matter.
Whew I thought I had two priests calling me out.
sorry, Jaime!
No problem Father!!
As far as the parts that I come from, here’s an excerpt from an article I read this morning
“I think Kerry is a moral man. I think he has good values. And justice is about more than abortion. Justice is about caring for children, homeless veterans and whether we should have sent our soldiers into Iraq.”
This is from a woman who works at one of our churches. This is what I hear all time. Sometimes I hear it from really wonderful people and I try to get a little catechizing in.
As far as the “My father was a democrat” line of thought, Couldn’t you also insert Catholic into that statement?
US Catholics are, for the large part, uninformed about their faith. Its partially their responsibility and some of the responsibility falls to the Church itself.
Jaime
(formerly Derek Jeter)
“People around here are not so much voting ‘conscience’ when they vote Democratic as they are staying in line with what they grew up with, and that was the bedrock principle that one ALWAYS votes Democratic, one NEVER votes Republican.”
Fr. Elijah – Your words reminded me of something I’ve heard Peter Kreeft say about his political beliefs. I’m paraphrasing, and any misinterpretation of Professor Kreeft’s intended point is my error alone.
He said something to the effect of, “In my younger years, I would have been considered a liberal Democrat. Today, I’d be considered a conservative Republican, and I haven’t changed my political views one bit.”
The roar of knowing laughter from the audience was priceless.
Kelly declares it to be so … just a handful. A little more than a week ago, the archdiocese announced a compromise had been reached with Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish in East Boston, that would see the parish close, but a neighboring parish (about a block away) start offering a weekly Mass in the former convent of Mt. Carmel.
But that plan fell through when a statue of Our Lady toppled over during the final Mass last Sunday. Now less than a dozen former parishioners have declared it a miracle and a sign that Our Lady doesn’t want the parish closed and they’re staging a sit-in. (Is it possible that someone moved the statue before Mass and it was then unsteady? Or if you want a supernatural explanation, is it possible that the Enemy didn’t like the fact that a peaceful compromise had been reached and wanted to sow discord between the people and their pastors?)
It appears the media thinks that a protest by a few parishioners, with the vast majority not protesting, constitutes a breach of the aforementioned agreement.
It also appears that there’s a new group of lay-people (another one?) formed to fight the parish closings, called Council of Parishes. Gee, I wonder if there are names overlapping with the membership of Voice of the Faithful? As Kelly Clark has so cogently said, there’s only one Catholic group I want to belong to and that’s the Catholic Church.
]]>
4247
2004-10-15 08:17:56
2004-10-15 12:17:56
open
open
do_ten_people_constitute_a_revolt
publish
0
0
post
I’m visiting family in the seacoast-NH area this week, an area which itself will be undergoing a reconfiguration soon. One proactive priest (whom I greatly admire and respect) has used his homilies as an opportunity to catechize the people of his parish in preparation—so that there will not be sit-ins there also. If only more priests could be proactive about these and other sorts of issues, there would be a lot less negative reaction after the fact.
To Patrick Sweeney and Sister Dunn: RIGHT ON, HOMIES!! 😀
Dom, the fact that Cdl. Law is speaking at any major Catholic function, much less at an international Eucharistic congress, shows just how pervasively corrupt and apostate this Pope and his hierarchy are. Not because of Cdl. Law’s role in the clerical abuse crisis but because just before he resigned, Cdl. Law prostrated himself toward Mecca and prayed to “Allah” while visiting a Boston mosque.
That’s apostacy, Dom, pure and simple. To the best of my knowledge, Cdl. Law has never publicly recanted that public act. Until he does, he should not be allowed to receive the Eucharist, let alone speak about it.
Joe, the fact that you can leap to such wild conclusions shows how naive and uninformed you are. I asked you in another thread to give me proof that the cardinal did what you claim. Did he pray to Allah? Did he renounce his faith? Did he reject the truth of the Catholic faith?
The irony, Joe, is that there’s more evidence that you’re an apostate than there is again Cardinal Law because I have your words on this web site rejecting the Church as necessary for salvation or unique among all churches or denominations.
You want proof, Dom?
From the Boston Globe of Nov. 25, 2002:
t_parent>
0
post
04-10-16 15:31:412004-10-16 19:31:41
No we don’t agree that we can’t say that Saddam’s crimes are worse.
On what basis whatsoever could anyone hold that Saddam’s crimes are worse than abortion in the United States since 1973?