Orders from Rome

[Andrewwhyte 1]

When JFK was running for president people asked whether the country would be subject to undue influence from the Holy See. Last year similar questions were posed about Mitt Romney's candidacy wrt the LDS. These arguments have been largely discounted as paranoia by most.
Not so fast!
Pope tells Pelosi: Catholics cannot back abortion

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By Philip Pullella
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VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, underscoring the Vatican's ruling on an issue that divides Americans, told U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday that Catholic politicians and legislators cannot back abortion rights.

Pelosi, a powerful U.S. politician who is Catholic and pro-choice, has been accused by U.S. bishops in the past of misrepresenting Church teachings on abortion.

"His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural and moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death ..." a Vatican statement said.

It said such teaching "enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men of goodwill in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development," it said.

She met the pope briefly at the mid-point of her visit to Italy, which is where her family is originally from.

Pelosi later issued a statement but did not refer to the abortion issue, saying she had a chance to "praise the Church's leadership, in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming."

During the presidential campaign, American bishops accused Pelosi as well as then-Senator Joe Biden, now vice-president, of misrepresenting Church teaching on abortion. Biden is also Catholic. Both have said abortion is a personal decision.

A month before the election, Archbishop Raymond Burke, a senior American in the Vatican, said the Democratic Party risked "transforming itself definitively into a 'party of death'" because of its choices on bioethical questions and abortion.

Conservative Catholics hailed him but others accused the Vatican of trying to interfere in the election.

STORM OF CRITICISM

Pelosi met a storm of criticism from conservative Catholics in August when she told a talk show that the question of exactly when life begins "shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."

She said when life began was still "an issue of controversy" in the Church and that "God has given us, each of us, a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions."

The Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception and ends at the moment of natural death.

In the past, both Pope Benedict and his predecessors have said that Catholic politicians cannot personally oppose abortion but publicly back abortion rights in the name of pluralism and democracy.

The Vatican says Catholic politicians should not let themselves be swayed by opinion polls and social trends.

The issue has deeply divided the Church in the United States as well as other industrialized countries, including Italy, where some Conservatives have called for Catholic politicians who back abortion rights to be excommunicated and barred from receiving communion.

Several days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama, with Pelosi's support, reversed a Bush administration ban on funding for groups abroad that provide abortion services.

Vatican officials criticized that change.

[masterblaster72 0]

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When JFK was running for president people asked whether the country would be subject to undue influence from the Holy See. Last year similar questions were posed about Mitt Romney's candidacy wrt the LDS. These arguments have been largely discounted as paranoia by most.
Not so fast!

So your analysis here suggests that this country is subject to undue influence from the Vatican because the church voiced its discontent with Pelosi's and Biden's positions on abortion.

Unless what you wrote is meant to be satirical:

Duh.

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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So your analysis here suggests that this country is subject to undue influence from the Vatican because the church voiced its discontent with Pelosi's and Biden's positions on abortion.

Unless what you wrote is meant to be satirical:

Duh.

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In the past, both Pope Benedict and his predecessors have said that Catholic politicians cannot personally oppose abortion but publicly back abortion rights in the name of pluralism and democracy.

That is more than voicing discontent, it is issuing imperatives,...

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The issue has deeply divided the Church in the United States as well as other industrialized countries, including Italy, where some Conservatives have called for Catholic politicians who back abortion rights to be excommunicated and barred from receiving communion.

...and threats.

[jakee 1,564]

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So your analysis here suggests that this country is subject to undue influence from the Vatican because the church voiced its discontent with Pelosi's and Biden's positions on abortion.

I think the point is that the country may not be subject to undue influence, but not for lack of trying.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Andy9o8 2]

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So your analysis here suggests that this country is subject to undue influence from the Vatican because the church voiced its discontent with Pelosi's and Biden's positions on abortion.

I think the point is that the country may not be subject to undue influence, but not for lack of trying.

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=31984&wf=rsscol

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Vatican's Archbishop Burke, No Communion for Catholic Politicians who Support Abortion
By Hilary White
2/5/2009
LifeSiteNews (www.lifesitenews.com)

"A Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."

ROME (LifeSiteNews.com) - Archbishop Raymond Burke, in an exclusive interview last week, told LifeSiteNews.com that the issue of pro-abortion politicians continuing to receive Holy Communion is still one of major concern and that it is the duty of bishops to ensure that they are refused.

He told LifeSiteNews.com, "I don't understand the continual debate that goes on about it. There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."

"The Church's law is very clear," said Archbishop Burke, who was appointed last year by Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Church's highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. "The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn't say that the bishop shall decide this. It's an absolute."

Among the US bishops directly to address the issue, Archbishop Burke was one of around a dozen who vigorously supported a directive of the Vatican that said pro-abortion Catholic politicians "must be refused" Holy Communion if they attempt to receive at Mass. Others have refused to abide by the Vatican instruction and the Church's own Code of Canon Law, saying they would rather focus on "education" of such politicians.

[Capt.Slog 0]

Please remember that Benedict used to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (aka The INQUISITION, that lovely organization that brought you torture and burning at the stake).

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Yep. The fifteenth century was a fine period. No reason not to recreate it today.

[futuredivot 0]

The Church has not been shy about their stance on abortion. Members know that and if they choose to go against that, then they can't be a member. What's wrong with that?

Most groups secular and religious have beliefs and bylaws and if you don't abide, you're kicked out. I've seen lots of people here call for the membership to be revoked for jumpers who violated our rules. Same thing.

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[billvon 3,080]

>The Church has not been shy about their stance on abortion. Members know
>that and if they choose to go against that, then they can't be a member. What's
>wrong with that?

Well, nothing at all.

In fact, it might just help with our economic woes. Per a 1954 law, any church that publically endorses or opposes political figures loses their tax exempt status. The Catholic Church in the US takes in billions upon billions of donations a year; taxing them as political contributions could help us plug the ever-growing hole in the deficit.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Well that would be a good argument to never vote for a Catholic. I don't belong to any organization that will expel me for my political behavior.

[Amazon 7]

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The Church has not been shy about their stance on abortion. Members know that and if they choose to go against that, then they can't be a member. What's wrong with that?

Most groups secular and religious have beliefs and bylaws and if you don't abide, you're kicked out. I've seen lots of people here call for the membership to be revoked for jumpers who violated our rules. Same thing.

Yup... A Low Pull is definitly grounds for excommunication from the Holy Church of the USPA

[Andy9o8 2]

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Well that would be a good argument to never vote for a Catholic. I don't belong to any organization that will expel me for my political behavior.

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I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
-Groucho Marx

[futuredivot 0]

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any church that publically endorses or opposes political figures

Which isn't what was said. They said that you couldn't be pro dead baby and be accepted as a Catholic. They took a moral stand, that's what churches do. If they didn't have morals, they wouldn't be churches, they would be liberals

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[jakee 1,564]

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any church that publically endorses or opposes political figures

Which isn't what was said. They said that you couldn't be pro dead baby and be accepted as a Catholic. They took a moral stand, that's what churches do. If they didn't have morals, they wouldn't be churches, they would be liberals

Nice

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[billvon 3,080]

>They said that you couldn't be pro dead baby and be accepted as a
>Catholic.

I'm anti-dead-baby, pro-choice _and_ catholic. Hard to believe, I know.

[happythoughts 0]

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>They said that you couldn't be pro dead baby and be accepted as a
>Catholic.

I'm anti-dead-baby, pro-choice _and_ catholic. Hard to believe, I know.

...and that is exactly the reason that a letter from
the Pope only carries only so much weight.

I doubt that Pelosi cares the smallest amount.
Politicians tend to be calloused in their religion.
Religion is just a tool for posturing, photo opportunities, and vote-stumping.

Saint William

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In spite of Bill Clinton's immorality and public deceit, his support for abortion and homosexuality, and other witnesses to his vile, unbelieving condition, many Christian leaders have praised him. Daniel Vestal of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship recently described Clinton as "obviously a person of faith and a committed Christian." Ed Dobson, pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, told Christianity Today in 1994 that Clinton is "more deeply spiritual than any president we've had in recent years."

Perhaps he had forgotten recent events... like Carter.

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After a meeting with the president at the White House in 1993, Jack Hayford, pastor of a Foursquare Pentecostal church and popular writer and speaker, said that he knows Clinton is a brother in Christ. After the same meeting, Roberta Hestenes, then president of Eastern College, said, "I'm absolutely convinced of his deep and sincere faith." James Dunn, then executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, told the Washington Post in 1994 that Clinton "has an intensely personal faith" and "has a Christian baseline from which he operates."

That's quite a "baseline".

I think that he's admitted to breaking 9 out of
the 10 commandments.

(Nobody really liked Vince Foster anyway.)

[futuredivot 0]

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I'm anti-dead-baby, pro-choice _and_ catholic. Hard to believe, I know.

Because you're not. You can't cherry pick. If you are Catholic, then you're not pro infanticide. You can claim to be Catholic, I can claim to be cute and thin-both are equally valid.

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[billvon 3,080]

>Because you're not. You can't cherry pick.

Oh, I am indeed! Every Catholic cherry picks. For example, I guarantee you that you cherry pick from the Bible. (Which is good; killing gays will get you thrown in jail pretty quickly.)

>You can claim to be Catholic.

Yep. I'm both Catholic _and_ liberal. It's like being conservative but having a brain.

[n23x 0]

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I can claim to be cute and thin-both are equally valid

A fat, ugly catholic! Say it ain't so.

.jim

"Don't touch my fucking Easter eggs, I'll be back monday." ~JTFC

[futuredivot 0]

Nope, not Catholic

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[JackC 0]

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I'm anti-dead-baby, pro-choice _and_ catholic. Hard to believe, I know.

Because you're not. You can't cherry pick. If you are Catholic, then you're not pro infanticide. You can claim to be Catholic, I can claim to be cute and thin-both are equally valid.

No true Scotsman!

[futuredivot 0]

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I guarantee you that you cherry pick from the Bible.

Nope-don't read it much. Not religious. Not even wholesale anti abortion. I just don't like watching anyone getting bashed for taking a stand on their beliefs when that stand doesn't cause harm to others. In this case, the statement from the church doesn't cause harm. They are just saying that if you don't share our beliefs, you can't play with us anymore. That is well within acceptable. I respect that the church as an entity doesn't dilute it's stance in the face of PR expediency.

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[JackC 0]

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I just don't like watching anyone getting bashed for taking a stand on their beliefs when that stand doesn't cause harm to others. In this case, the statement from the church doesn't cause harm. They are just saying that if you don't share our beliefs, you can't play with us anymore. That is well within acceptable. I respect that the church as an entity doesn't dilute it's stance in the face of PR expediency.

I disagree. When the church takes a stand on something, members of the church tend to listen. If that person is a politician, the church could undoubtedly affect their policy decisions. Since I think democratic systems works better when divorced from undemocratic interference, I think the church issuing an ultimatum can only do harm. In essence, it could be argued that elected officals with religious beleifs have a confliction of interests that is not beneficial to the democratic process.

[futuredivot 0]

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If that person is a politician, the church could undoubtedly affect their policy decisions.

No, the politician's belief system will affect their policy decisions. Just as our individual belief systems affect our decisions. We vote for representatives that mirror our feelings on issues that are key to us.

Less formal example. There was a member of my group of friends that repeatedly and unapologetically screwed around on his wife. The rest of us determined that infidelity is not behavior that we condone. We no longer associate with him. You can say that we removed him from our group but you can just as legitimately say that he chose to resign from our group because he no longer agreed with our stand on an issue that was important to all of us.
It is the same thing.

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[DanG 1]

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Less formal example. There was a member of my group of friends that repeatedly and unapologetically screwed around on his wife. The rest of us determined that infidelity is not behavior that we condone. We no longer associate with him. You can say that we removed him from our group but you can just as legitimately say that he chose to resign from our group because he no longer agreed with our stand on an issue that was important to all of us.
It is the same thing.

The big difference being that if you had convinced your friend that the only way to eternal peace and salvation (and avoiding an eternity of physical and spiritual agony) was to keep hanging out with you, he might have been persuaded to change his "belief system".

The Church is not just some Saturday bowling club to its members. It is a part of their spiritual being. Threatening them with damnation because of their political activities is not the same as being told to go join a different bowling league.

The problem becomes even more apparent when you read about priests or bishops declaring that even people who vote for pro-choice polititions should be excommunicated. The Church is clearly taking a political stance and exerting political pressure.

- Dan G