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Fr. Kerry and Pius XXIII
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| April 12, 2004
| Pat Buchanan
Posted on 04/12/2004 4:50:51 PM PDT by Thorin
"My oath privately between me and God was defined in the Catholic Church by Pius XXIII and Pope Paul VI in the Vatican II, which allows for freedom of conscience for Catholics with respect to these choices ..."
Thus did John Kerry rebuke fellow Catholics who are demanding that the bishops sanction him for supporting abortions and homosexual unions.
Katharine Seelye of the New York Times graciously points out that Kerry surely meant John XXIII, as there was no Pius XXIII. The gaffe does suggest, however, that Kerry is about as conversant with Catholic doctrine as Cardinal Ratzinger is with hip-hop.
But the "Pius XXIII" side-splitter is insignificant beside Kerry's claim that he can both vote for a woman's right to abort her child and to legalize homosexual unions, and remain faithful to Catholic teaching.
Kerry is wrong, and scandalously wrong. For other Catholics, as untutored as he, may assume that they, too, can act on Kerry's heretical views and remain true to Catholic doctrine.
Whose duty is it to correct Kerry and, if need be, sanction him? The duty belongs to Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston and the conference of U.S. Catholic bishops. For Kerry is now a candidate for an office where his decisions on law, funding and Supreme Court nominees may determine whether countless unborn children live or perish. This one is going to separate the Cardinal Woolseys from the Thomas Mores.
Nor is this a matter on which Catholics may, in good faith, disagree, like minimum-wage laws. On taking innocent life, the church has spoken out repeatedly, consistently, infallibly. As Kenneth Baker, S.J., writes in Fundamentals of Catholicism:
The Second Vatican Council reiterated the constant tradition of the Church when it declared in the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, "Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: Abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes."
In his Declaration on Abortion (1974), Pope Paul VI stated, "Respect for human life is called for from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father or the mother ... Divine law and natural reason exclude all right to the direct killing of an innocent human being."
John Hardon, S.J., devoted seven pages of his Catholic Catechism to demonstrating that from the first century A.D., "On the level of morality, Catholicism has always held that the direct attack on an unborn fetus, at any time after conception, is a grave sin."
Pope John XXIII, who called Vatican II, wrote: "Human life is sacred; from its very inception the creative action of God is directly operative. By violating his laws, the divine majesty is offended, the individuals themselves and humanity are degraded ..."
On sexual morality, too, Church teaching is consistent and clear.
The Teaching of Christ: The Catholic Catechism for Adults, states: "homosexual acts ... have throughout the centuries been condemned by the ordinary teaching of the Catholic Church and by the formal judgments of the magisterium."
Now Kerry may believe as he wishes. What he cannot do is vote for abortions and to elevate immoral sexual unions to the level of marriage and claim his votes do not violate Catholic doctrine. In the first case, he is supporting the deliberate killing of unborn children. In the second, he is sanctioning what the church teaches to be unnatural, immoral and depraved conduct, and placing it on a moral and legal plane with marriage, an abomination.
As a Catholic legislator, Kerry's obligation is clear. Pius XI addressed it in Casti Connubi (On Christian Marriage) in Dec. 1930:
Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority ... to defend the lives of the innocent ... among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates ... do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors and others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cries from earth to heaven.
But the real problem is not Kerry or his Catholic colleagues like Kennedy, Dodd and Daschle who vote and, one assumes, believe as he does. The problem rests with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Many prelates have failed dismally in their pastoral duty to correct, admonish and sanction our Catholic lords temporal, even as some failed to protect Catholic children from predator-priests.
Rather than act as a pride of lions defending Catholic truth, they have, with rare exceptions, behaved like a rabbit warren. Time to get off the lettuce diet and return to the raw meat of doctrinal truth and episcopal duty to which they have all been called.
TOPICS: News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abortion; catholicism; catholicpoliticians; kerry; kerryandgod; patbuchanan
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Pat tells it like it is about Kerry's laughable ignorance of Catholicism and about the moral cowardice of too many of our bishops.
1
posted on
04/12/2004 4:50:52 PM PDT
by
Thorin
To: Thorin
When was the last time Kerry attended mass? Prior to the campaign I mean..
2
posted on
04/12/2004 4:53:06 PM PDT
by
cardinal4
(Terrence Maculiffe-Ariolimax columbianus (hint- its a gastropod.....)
To: Thorin
Gotta keep tellin' the USCCB that we're scandalized by these CINO pols. Drop a line to the Vatican too.
3
posted on
04/12/2004 4:58:32 PM PDT
by
polemikos
(Ecce Agnus Dei)
To: Thorin
CAN YOU IMAGINE THE OUTRAGE (FEIGNED BUT LOUD) HAD BUSH REFERRED TO "PIUS XXIII" WHEN HE MEANT "JOHN XXIII?"
Remember when Bush mispronounced the name of the Nigerian president? The left wing media was all over him. I mean, I have no problem with Kerry here because, no matter what he says, he is a lying scumbag anyway.
4
posted on
04/12/2004 4:59:03 PM PDT
by
Tacis
To: Thorin
There is an urgency that the USCCB respond to this, as a body.
Kerry would love to take on one bishop (such as O'Malley).
It would be difficult for him to take on the entire American hierarchy.
5
posted on
04/12/2004 5:01:46 PM PDT
by
sinkspur
(Adopt a dog or a cat from an animal shelter! It will save one life, and may save two.)
To: cardinal4; Thorin
Kerry and the wee little Mrs Condiment attended Easter Sunday services yesterday. They are, and apparently have been, attending a "Paulist Center"--I read about it first on a different thread today. Its non-denominational but seems to heavily lean toward Roman Catholic tradition (not teaching, obviously). The church is NOT in communion with the Vatican so Catholic bishops cannot really do much about his receiving the Eucharist.
Well, if they really wanted to I suppose they could find a reason to excommunicate him. I wouldn't cry.
6
posted on
04/12/2004 5:08:53 PM PDT
by
grellis
(Mi sento male. Ho fatto un'indigestione!)
To: sinkspur
>>>>>>>There is an urgency that the USCCB respond to this, as a body.
Kerry would love to take on one bishop (such as O'Malley).
It would be difficult for him to take on the entire American hierarchy.<<<<<<
I'm afraid that's not going to happen. We have lately gotten several good episcopal appointments, but the American bishops as a whole are timorous, at best.
I actually feel sorry for O'Malley, whom I believe to be a good man in a very tough situation. Taking on Kerry after coming to clean up the mess left by Law is asking a lot.
7
posted on
04/12/2004 5:09:10 PM PDT
by
Thorin
To: Thorin
Kerry Attends Easter Services and Receives Holy Communion Haven't figured out links yet. This is the title of the earlier thread which vaguely explains the nature of the church Qerry is now attending.
8
posted on
04/12/2004 5:11:20 PM PDT
by
grellis
(Mi sento male. Ho fatto un'indigestione!)
To: sinkspur
From what I understand Cardinal McCarrick (sp)is in charge of the group looking into how to handle the situation of Catholic politicians who oppose Church teachings.
9
posted on
04/12/2004 5:16:14 PM PDT
by
mware
To: Thorin
John Hardon, S.J., Wow! I wonder if this guy ever thought of changing his name? He might have more luck getting parents to let him tutor their children.
10
posted on
04/12/2004 5:16:38 PM PDT
by
Migraine
(my grain is pretty straight today)
To: Thorin
Pat tells it like it is about Kerry's laughable ignorance of Catholicism...Ignorance is not the correct word. Kerry is not ignorant in the requirements of the church. He deliberately and conveniently chooses to ignore those teachings that he disagrees with. His is not ignorance, but haughtiness, befitting his belief that as a liberal and given his social status, he can ignore rules that apply to commoners but not to the elite.
11
posted on
04/12/2004 5:18:06 PM PDT
by
CedarDave
(Democrat campaign strategy: Tell a lie often enough today and it becomes truth tomorrow.)
To: Thorin
More and more John Kerry comes to fit the analogy with Henry VIII, who had a disagreement with the Pope, and went off to form his own breakaway church, that would recognize the supremacy of the King.
We know Kerry to be a moral authority unto himself. But until recently, why was it that no one was aware that somebody had died and made him King?
To: Migraine
The total freakin' idiot who hacked
migraine's account wrote:
Wow! I wonder if this guy ever thought of changing his name? He might have more luck getting parents to let him tutor their children.To that worthless piece of scum, I say: The late Fr. John Hardon, SJ was a scholar and a gentleman, and a better man than you, in your wildest dreams, could ever hope to be.
To migraine I say: you'd best change your password and practice better account security. Someone's trying to make you look bad.
13
posted on
04/12/2004 5:22:03 PM PDT
by
ArrogantBustard
(Chief Engineer, Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemens' Club)
To: Thorin
And the last thing O'Malley wants to do is to appear to be injecting himself into politics, which is what the Kerry camp will accuse him of doing if he lowers the hammer.
My mother voted for Democrats to her dying day (in 1992) and just ignored me when I asked her how she could vote for men who sanction abortion.
Somehow, in the minds of these Catholics, not voting for a Democrat would be the biggest sin of all.
14
posted on
04/12/2004 5:23:28 PM PDT
by
sinkspur
(Adopt a dog or a cat from an animal shelter! It will save one life, and may save two.)
To: Migraine
Come back when you get to the eleventh grade.
15
posted on
04/12/2004 5:24:56 PM PDT
by
sinkspur
(Adopt a dog or a cat from an animal shelter! It will save one life, and may save two.)
To: sinkspur
That mindset is fading; less and less people remember the pre-abortion Democratic Party with each passing day.
16
posted on
04/12/2004 5:26:44 PM PDT
by
Tuco Ramirez
(Ideas have consequences.)
To: alloysteel
>>>>>>More and more John Kerry comes to fit the analogy with Henry VIII, who had a disagreement with the Pope, and went off to form his own breakaway church, that would recognize the supremacy of the King.<<<<<<
Would that we were so lucky! The problem with today's phony Catholics (including the ones who wear Roman collars) is that they lack the intellectual authority to join a different religion. Instead they stay, and seek to undermine the Church from within.
17
posted on
04/12/2004 5:27:57 PM PDT
by
Thorin
To: alloysteel
>>>>>>More and more John Kerry comes to fit the analogy with Henry VIII, who had a disagreement with the Pope, and went off to form his own breakaway church, that would recognize the supremacy of the King.<<<<<<
Would that we were so lucky! The problem with today's phony Catholics (including the ones who wear Roman collars) is that they lack the intellectual authority to join a different religion. Instead they stay, and seek to undermine the Church from within.
18
posted on
04/12/2004 5:28:13 PM PDT
by
Thorin
To: alloysteel
>>>>>>More and more John Kerry comes to fit the analogy with Henry VIII, who had a disagreement with the Pope, and went off to form his own breakaway church, that would recognize the supremacy of the King.<<<<<<
Would that we were so lucky! The problem with today's phony Catholics (including the ones who wear Roman collars) is that they lack the intellectual authority to join a different religion. Instead they stay, and seek to undermine the Church from within.
19
posted on
04/12/2004 5:28:19 PM PDT
by
Thorin
To: alloysteel
>>>>>>More and more John Kerry comes to fit the analogy with Henry VIII, who had a disagreement with the Pope, and went off to form his own breakaway church, that would recognize the supremacy of the King.<<<<<<
Would that we were so lucky! The problem with today's phony Catholics (including the ones who wear Roman collars) is that they lack the intellectual authority to join a different religion. Instead they stay, and seek to undermine the Church from within.
20
posted on
04/12/2004 5:28:32 PM PDT
by
Thorin
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