Posted on 10/18/2004 9:42:39 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
A canon lawyer seeking to have Senator John Kerry excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church because of his support for abortion rights said on Monday that he had ammunition in the form of a letter issued at the request of a senior Vatican official.
The lawyer, Marc Balestrieri of Los Angeles, who heads a conservative Catholic nonprofit organization called De Fide, also said that, based on the letter, he would now seek to have four other Catholic politicians excommunicated: Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mario M. Cuomo, the former governor of New York.
"Senator Kerry, and all pro-choice Catholic politicians, who publicly call themselves Catholic yet who blatantly violate canon law by continuing to profess heresy and receive Holy Communion, must publicly reject their abortion advocacy for the sake of their own souls, and the others they have scandalized," Mr. Balestrieri said in a statement. "They have been excommunicated."
Only Ms. Collins is not a Democrat.
The letter to Mr. Balestrieri, written by another American canon lawyer at the request of a Vatican official, says that "if a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy" and is "automatically excommunicated."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
*** Only Ms. Collins is not a Democrat ***
close enough !
what about Daschle, Kennedy, Pelosi ?
I've already sent a copy of this to Rush, Mike Reagan, Laura Ingraham, Chris Matthews, Bill O'Reilly, and my local talk-radio hosts.
Louisiana would appreciate it very much if you would please add the name of Senator Mary Landrieu to your list of Catholics that support abortion by refusing to vote against it. She hides behind the "I am personally opposed to abortion but I believe in the right to a woman's choice." I am sure if the issue were slavery she would take the same position.
Whoa!
After watching hourly re-posts of wishful thinking on this,
the NYT gives the story some cred?
What's next, columns written by the SBVFT?
You know where I think we're headed? To an abortion Oct Surprise with Bush. If in fact there is fire behind the smoke on that rumor, Kerry and his hacks will absolutely uncover it.
I've sent copies to my parents and other Catholic friends that still just don't get it.
Seriously, how do you think Kerry et al will personally take this?
Drudge has it.
The letter, first reported on Friday by Eternal Word Television Network, a Catholic station in Alabama, was written last month after Mr. Balestrieri met with an official at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In June, Mr. Balestrieri filed a complaint accusing Mr. Kerry of heresy and seeking to have him excommunicated. The complaint was filed with the Archdiocese of Boston, where Mr. Kerry lives. The archdiocese, which declined to comment Monday, can decide whether Mr. Kerry should be excommunicated because he supports abortion rights.
Mr. Balestrieri said that when he was in Rome, he did not disclose to the Vatican that he had filed the petition against Mr. Kerry. He said he merely asked whether someone who publicly supports abortion rights was guilty of heresy.
Experts in canon law say Vatican officials frequently receive questions about matters of church doctrine. They can choose to answer those questions officially, giving their answers the weight of church law, or they can choose to answer them unofficially, delegating the matter to a canon lawyer not affiliated with the Vatican.
In Mr. Balestrieri's case, the undersecretary of the office, the Very Rev. Augustine di Noia, asked a friend, the Rev. Basil Cole, an associate professor at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, to write an "unofficial" response to Mr. Balestrieri's question, Father Cole said in an interview.
A spokesman for Mr. Kerry, Michael Meehan, would say only: "Kerry's a Catholic who attends Mass regularly and receives communion. That explains his standing in the church."
A spokesman for Mr. Kennedy declined to comment. Mr. Harkin, Ms. Collins and Mr. Cuomo could not be reached.
Well you do acknowledge that AWOL came back with a vengeance this go around even though it was whispered in 2000? I think the abortion thing is a likely bomb the Rats will drop before the election. That would be a base dispiriting bomb against Bush-- something Kerry has already shown that he feels he needs to do, see the Mary Cheney comment. I would be amazed if they don't drop it.
Ping
If I remember right, Kerry's parents became Catholic to escape religious persecution. They were originally Jewish. I'm not sure a man with morals really cares if he has been excommunicated from the Catholic Church, when other churches would be happy to take him under their wing with his millions $$$.
He'll try to ignore it
We'll have to see what happens here.
I know I sound stupid here, but... How will he be notified?
Altho I am a Catholic, I have never known anyone to be excommunicated. This is great. The Church is finally doing something about these folks. Ted Kennedy should have been gone a long time ago.
If nothing else, we can thank Dan Rather and SEE-BS for immunizing Bush to these kinds of attacks. While they can still use Iraq, and the other standard Democrat talking points (Medicare, Social Security, etc), pulling a DUI type story isn't going to work this time around.
Ummm .. I don't think so and Mr. Meehan needs to bush up on the Catholic Rules
LOL!!!!!!!!!!
Amarillo, I used to drink and post.
It never worked out.
Post, or drink. But don't mix the two.
There is no "Bush abortion" October Surprise. That's a secret that's too big to keep.
Thanks for the ping.
We'll see. I will hold you to this post. Don't you think that those mean-spirited Kerry people have something planned for the last three weeks? Whay do you imagine they have?
I agree it blew up in their face, but it took awhile to do that. If they drop it at the 11th hour, is there enough time for it to backfire?
Possibly.
The pattern of the DNC & Old Media, especially CBS has been to accuse Bush of whatever Kerry is accused of.
An example is that they responded to the SiftVets' ads by attacking Bush's National Guard service.
So look for them to accuse Bush of being a sinner. Could be the old rumor that he gave a woman a ride to an abortion clinic or maybe claiming that his killing of civilians in Iraq condemns him to hell. But it will definitely be some religious attack.
True or not, believe that the dumbocrats will pull out anything with a modicum of credibility behind it (proveable or not). They are desperate, desperate, desperate.
When the candidate himself is pulling out the race, lesbian, draft and social security cards, instead of letting DNC hacks spread the fear, you know that they are worried.
Well we know they think this is a ginning up the base election. The Mary Cheney strategy was designed to keep evangelicals home. Kerry has responded with everything dished at him with fire. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth led to Texans for Truth . The POW Wives led to unhappy guard wives and crying mothers of KIAs.
Isn't there even a soldier who lost his arm in Iraq starring in a Lefty 527 ad saying he lost his arm for Bush's lies?
I think this "Kerry is a bad Catholic thing" (which he plainly is) will push Kerry to look into the abortion rumor even harder than he would have. Kerry can't afford to lose Catholics and can't afford to have Bush's base come out in full force.
How could such a charge be disproved if some chick bribed by Soros said she aborted Bush's kid on the eve of the election?
Yes he has, but I think Kerry is going to drop something. The election is so close and Kerry has no morality. He might even want to win more than Gore did. I put nothing past Kerry at this point.
Matt Drudge said on his radio show yesterday that he has a feeling the Dems will release the Abu Gharib tape of US soldiers raping a boy. I hope not, but wouldn't put anything past cBS and the Dems. Let's just hope Rove has an Oct. surprise as well.
Even supposing that Bush were involved with an abortion sometime in his past, could he not point to his life since he was born again in Christ and remind people that Christ came to cleanse people of their sins?
One thing Democrats don't understand is that almost all "surprises" from the past can be dealt with quickly and easily with a simple haiku:
Yes I did that once.Of course, one has to be able to show by one's actions since performing the action in question that one has learned from it, but I think almost anything Bush could possibly have in his past could be dealt with this way.
'Twas incredibly stupid.
I am wiser now.
Kerry, by contrast, refuses to repudiate his past actions even when people widely recognize them to have been heinously wrong. If Kerry hadn't been running on his war record, and had admitted his anti-war actions in the past were stupid, he might be able to put even a dishonrable discharge behind him in the eyes of most voters. But he continues to maintain that his VVAW actions were right and proper. So he can't make them go away.
Hey that reminds me, give us credit here in SD for pinning down Daschle to our flyover state!!!!!!!!
I have never thought of it that way. But it is an exellent anology.
I thought and hope that the people who raped the Iraqi boy were Iraqi contractors with the US military. That changes everything. I sure hope it wasn't a US soldier.
Even if it was, it would show beyond a shadow of a doubt that that unit was behaving contrary to regulations. Rummy and the chain of command didn't tell them to rape the Iraqis.
I think Abu Ghraib has pretty much played itself out-- it hurt Bush as much as it could.
I think they are going to target Bush's likability and personal integrity with some charge about his past. They figure those qualities of Bush's are what's keeping him afloat, I think they will drop something to hurt how the public perceives him in the last three weeks. I hope I am wrong, but I seem to be able to predict what the Dems will do.
Oh, I think so. But the DUI did hurt him that final weekend.
I sure as Hell won't hold it against him-- I've already voted for him anyway. But I'm not the person they are directing such an attack to. They would want to drive down enthusiasm amongst evangelicals and conservative to moderate Catholics and with soft Bush voters and the undecideds.
I'll find some slut who will say Bush knocked her up and then forced her to have an abortion.
We negotiate playing CBS and Nightline against each other in order to stall for time and keep them from pursuing other sluts.
The night the expose' is to be aired we hold a last minute press conference with the slut admitting it's all a lie and that Kerry paid her to lie.Caprock High
Could you give us an example of prior predictions -- here on this very forum, and under this very pseudonym -- that have proven to be true? It appears that you haven't participated in these discussions before 10/15/2004, at least not under the current pseudonym.
I mean no disrespect, but we don't really have much of a verifiable track record with which to work.
Perhaps. But I would hope those people would realize that the whole purpose of Christ coming to earth was to cleanse people of their sins. God no longer cares about the past sins of people who have accepted Christ and been purified through him. If God has forgiven someone's sins, what right does anyone have to condemn that person allegedly on God's behalf?
bttt
I'm not Catholic so I need to ask, if he is excommunicated can he take communion?
My sense is that Kerry will just try to ignore it. Failing that, he will claim that there is no official Decree from the Vatican with his name on it, and he will claim it's all a Republican 'ruse'. Another angle he could use is to claim that he himself is "personally opposed" to abortion, but that as an elected government official he cannot force his personal religious views onto others, especially non-Catholics. He'll bob, weave and dance; but for certain he won't change his political views, he'll remain an abortionist.
The answer is no, and if he does then he heaps sin upon sin. Not that he cares.
Nobody condems the person, he condemns himself by his actions.
What most people don't understand is that the excommunication is to bring people back into the fold, not put them out. For they have already put themsleves out.
Excommunication is issued when a person obstinately remains in sin, refusing to repent. It disallows that person from receiving Communion because that person has removed himself/herself from Christ's community by sinning and not desiring to repent of the sin. (For example, John Kerry has been told repeatedly by the Church that abortion is murder, and that he needs to change his position on the grizzly practice in order to remain a Christian). So in reality excommunication is issued as a dire warning, to help the person to repent and accept God's Commandments and the teachings of the Church He founded.
There are many examples of excommunication in the New Testament, here's one:
"And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican" (Matt., xviii, 17).
Nobody condems the person, he condemns himself by his actions.
If the person continues to sin, that is true. But if someone has turned from their evil ways, and has sought and received forgiveness and atonement, I would think that such a person would no longer be condemned by his actions. Indeed, if Christ didn't come to save such people, why'd he come at all?
Bump
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