Posted on 10/13/2008 3:18:26 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Some North Texas Catholics are upset with a letter written and distributed by their local bishops, saying it amounts to an endorsement of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
The letter by Bishop Kevin Farrell of the Diocese of Dallas and Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Fort Worth says in part: “To vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or `abortion rights’ when there is morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil – and, therefore, morally impermissible.”
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, supports abortion rights. Sen. McCain favors overturning Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that protects the right to an abortion.
The bishops’ letter was distributed or read at parishes across the Diocese of Dallas this weekend. The Fort Worth diocese is distributing the letter through its newspaper, which is being mailed to all registered Catholic families in the diocese.
Nicole LeBlanc said several people walked out of Dallas' Holy Trinity Catholic Church during the 11 a.m. Sunday Mass, when the letter was read at the time usually reserved for a homily.
Ms. LeBlanc, an Obama supporter, said she, too, was upset.
“As a Catholic, we’re taught about being independent moral agents with free will,” she said. “That letter from the bishops is basically telling us that if we vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights, we are basically immoral and our souls are imperiled.”
Ms. LeBlanc also said she felt the letter “has gone too far towards bringing political endorsements in the church, which is obviously not legal.”
Ms. LeBlanc said a protest of the letter is likely to occur outside the pastoral center of the Dallas Diocese this Wednesday afternoon.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Waaa
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You don’t get it both ways. Abortion or pro life. You can’t be partially against abortion, any more than a woman could be partially pregnant.
Some things are absolutely true whether we want them to be or not.
The thought of a little aborted fetus being ground up, as in The Netherlands, or smashed, as in Spain, shouldn’t just irk us. We should be aghast.
Or, the idea of a tiny, new born, aborted baby that actually lives, being left all alone, uncovered, to die on some table or pile of clothes in a closet, should make people who are involved in it go stark raving mad.
I saw a video of the man who invented partial birth abortions talking about it to a big group of people. They applauded him. I cannot imagine having that blood on my hands. You might as well hack off the baby’s head, a la islam.
Free will to decide between doing right or wrong, not the free will to define right and wrong. What an idiot!
“That letter from the bishops is basically telling us that if we vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights, we are basically immoral and our souls are imperiled.”
Yes dear. Killing babies is bad for the soul.
You're picking your priorities with your own free will, Mizz LeBlank
What these Liberals are really saying is:
“Don’t tell me how to be a Christian, I can decide all that stuff for myself. I don’t need the Word of God to tell me what to do. Abortion is just a relative thingy, after all”.
Note to wanna be Catholics: Please see Psalm 139. That is of course, if they even read the Bible.
They are dancing on the trapdoor of hell.
LOL!!! Good one.
DUH, Nicole....you have free will to do anything but it’s the Church’s job to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong.....if you so choose to do wrong after you know, well.....
It all comes down to this: Choose Life.
Who was the very first person on earth to acknowledge Jesus Christ for who He is? The unborn baby (John) still in his mother’s womb.
LOL!!!!!
My thoughts exactly! Ms. LeBlanc - Go find a Unitarian church - it would be more to your liking.
The most honest approach would be, "my imaginary friends", but that would get too close to the actual truth.
You wrote:
“Yeah, the “Episcopalian Chess Club” - they can’t tell a bishop from a queen.”
Oh, that’s gonna leave a mark.
Our pastor here in Vermont, which is certainly not a conservative state, said much the same last week. And a visiting priest who took his place today while he was on vacation also gave us this message.
He said, Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. But, he said, as Catholics we must vote in support of the right to life from conception to natural death.
I’m especially glad to hear this being said in November, because in recent decades the bishops have tended to avoid this issue around election time for fear of sounding political or losing a tax exemption—until now.
This lady is upset about more than just abortion. Read the whole letter that the Bishops sent. (It’s very long but worth the read.) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2104144/posts
I think she listened as long as she could stand there and have her feet held to the fire. When the heat got too hot for her liking, she bailed.
That’s one of the hard parts of being a Christian, you don’t get to protest the truths with which you don’t agree! Take all of God’s word as true or none of it. In that respect, you absolutely do have free will.
The Florida bishops (with two exceptions, Wenski and Dewane) have been cowering on this and one of them (my bishop) sent out a letter this weekend which he claimed came from the NCCB and the Florida bishops’ council telling people that they could not distribute certain material around the church, etc. The things he mentioned were the Priests for Life issues guide and a number of other orthodox things, none of which endorsed a party or a politician. My bishop used to be pro-life, but now he’s a “seamless garment” type, and he obviously is going to vote for Obama. The problem is that he wants to make sure the laity doesn’t hear any inconvenient facts, and he is using this approach - “the IRS is going to shut us down if you hand out the Priests for Life brochure anywhere near the church” - to scare people into silence.
I wish I had a good bishop like Farrell or Vann. I was truly appalled to see a bishop (or maybe an entire state council of them) using the IRS to terrorize his own people.
If the shoe fits.
Why did he change?
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