Posted on 11/20/2008 3:38:20 PM PST by wagglebee
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- It's no surprise that Catholic Church officials take pro-abortion politicians or groups to task for saying they are out of step with pro-life Catholic teachings. Now, a Planned parenthood CEO in Massachusetts is turning the tables and claiming Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston is out of step with his membership.
After the presidential election, O'Malley told the Boston Globe that he is worried about the election of Barack Obama because of his pro-abortion views.
The concern come despite his pleasure that the nation turned a corner in electing the first African-American president.
"My joy, however, is tempered by the knowledge that this man has a deplorable record when it comes to pro-life issues and is possibly in the pocket of Planned Parenthood," O'Malley said.
The Catholic cardinal told the newspaper that Planned Parenthood "in its origins was a very racist organization to eliminate the blacks" and "it’s sort of ironic that he’s been co-opted by them."
Dianne Luby, the president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, responded to O'Malley in an email to the newspaper. She didn't respond to the racism contention but claimed O'Malley's views don't represent those of Boston Catholics.
"It diminishes Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s credibility when he attacks President-elect Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood for views and services his own members overwhelmingly support," Luby claims.
"If Cardinal O’Malley is going to opine on politics, and the bishops are planning to discuss lessons learned from last week’s election, it would be good for them to understand why their messages didn't stick with their primary audience," Luby shot back.
"Cardinal O’Malley and the bishops have a lot of work to do in order to reconnect with their members," Luby concluded. "It appears from exit polls during this most recent election cycle, that Cardinal O’Malley is out of step with most voters on this very personal decision."
O'Malley, in his original comments to the Globe, appears to disagree.
"Obama is the president, and everyone wishes him well, and we will try to work with him. However, I hope he realizes that his election was not a mandate to rush ahead with a pro-abortion platform," he said.
The Catholic cardinal also said Obama and Planned Parenthood are disingenuous about claming they want to reduce abortions because their main legislation in Congress will promote them.
"Now they're talking about pushing this FOCA, which doesn't sound to me like it’s going to try and reduce abortions, but simply make them much more accessible to people, and pay for them, at home and abroad," he said.
No you idiot, McCain failed to make abortion an issue, there is no reason to believe that the majority of Catholics agree with your pro-death views.
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I’m afraid the truth is Hispanic Catholics are out of step with the Catholic Church. Flame away.
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I guess the Church is supposed to be a democracy. But what canone expect from some hare-brained PP broad?
He probably is out of step with the cafeteria Catholics of his diocese. He’s in step with God, though. As for Hispanics being cafeteria Catholics, I suspect that the Irish and Germans are cafeteria Catholics in similar proportions.
As a Boston (Greater Boston) Catholic I can assure Miss Luby (I'd wager the shirt on my back that she's a confirmed bachelorette) that you could count the number of *real* Catholics in this state on the fingers of one hand.So I say to this dame that she's full of bleep.
One hopes that Miss Luby will not find herself in step with red-hot pitchforks or some such after the great, big exit poll that awaits all of us.
It’s something the American Church doesn’t like to acknowledge, but there is significant variance in fidelity along ethnic lines. Groups like Germans and Poles who already had their schisms, either in the old country or here, tend to significantly higher orthodoxy than the Irish, for whom being able to claim some sort of Catholic identity is wrapped up with their “Irishness,” regardless of how little heed they actually give Rome.
Latinos, like the Poles and Germans, show a tendency to just leave if they find a church they like better, although it’s going to take a couple of generations for that tendency to sort itself out entirely.
I didn’t realize it was the clergy’s job to stay in step with the world.
Irish Americans were shocked when the first wave of Italian immigrants came, and they saw that the men rarely attended Church and the women gave more attention to the saints than to the mass itself. There is a good reason why one never uses the term "Italian Catholic" without irony. ;-)
Sure! Just ask Cardinal Pelosi...
What the Catholic Church needs to do, and I’ve been waiting for it for years, is to have a well-publicized press national conference with lots of prepublicity and PUBLICLY EXCOMMUNICATE EVERY SINGLE POLITICIAN THAT HOLDS THAT ABORTION SHOULD BE LEGAL AT ANY STAGE . . . READ OFF EVERY SINGLE NAME . . . ONE AFTER ANOTHER. AND DEMAND THAT NO CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES WILL BE ALLOWED TO GIVE THEM THE SACRAMENTS UNTIL THEY CONFESS THEIR HORRIBLE SIN.
Until they do that, they’re just whistling in the wind.
My elderly aunt and I had a number of conversations about politics and religion before she died.She went to Mass every day until her health started to fail (as she reached 90),she never was without her rosary beads...etc.Yet she voted RAT every single time.I tried to explain to her what today's RAT Party was about (abortion,homosexual "marriage",etc) because she wasn't up on politics.She was appalled by what I told her.But when I tried to discover if I had succeeded in changing her mind I found that I hadn't.When I asked why she was gonna continue voting RAT she said "because the RATS give me my Social Security".
I knew at that point that she was a lost cause...politically speaking.
I would love to see that day!
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
It’s a blessed thing when a church leader is out of step with the people while being true to the Lord. It is the people, in such cases that should be in step.
The problem is that too many leaders are not merely in the world, but of the world.
My understanding has always been that excommunication is forever.So,if I'm correct,then "confession" would be useless and the sacraments cannot be given under any circumstances.
“My understanding has always been that excommunication is forever”
I don’t think it’s forever. I think there a recanting and confession (followed by penance) that would reinstate them in the church.
More knowledgeable Catholics should help us our.
It wasn’t just Italian Catholics. I read somewhere that the Cursillo movement started in Spain after WWII as an instrument to increase the faith of Spanish men and bring them back into church.
Cardinal O’Malley is IN step with the Catholic Church.
Cafeteria Catholics are OUT of step with the Catholic Church.
Really simple. If you’re out of step, change ballrooms. You’re not going to change the Catholic Church. It has withstood over 2000 years of attacks and is as strong as ever. No matter what “you” think, the Magisterium has the final word.
See http://www.newadvent.org if you wish to pursue information about the Catholic Church.
Excommunication is not forever. No Bishop wants to excommunicate anyone. Excommunication can be lifted by the Bishop.
From NewAdvent.org
Absolution from excommunication
Apart from the rare cases in which excommunication is imposed for a fixed period and then ceases of itself, it is always removed by absolution. It is to be noted at once that, though the same word is used to designate the sacramental sentence by which sins are remitted and that by which excommunication is removed, there is a vast difference between the two acts. The absolution which revokes excommunication is purely jurisdictional and has nothing sacramental about it. It reinstates the repentant sinner in the Church; restores the rights of which he had been deprived, beginning with participation in the sacraments; and for this very reason, it should precede sacramental absolution, which it thenceforth renders possible and efficacious. After absolution from excommunication has been given in foro externo, the judge sends the person absolved to a confessor, that his sin may be remitted; when absolution from censure is given in the confessional, it should always precede sacramental absolution, conformably to the instruction in the Ritual and the very tenor o the formula for sacramental absolution, It may be noted at once that the principal effect of absolution from excommunication may be acquired without the excommunicated person’s being wholly reinstated in his former position. Thus, an ecclesiastic might not necessarily recover the benefice which he had lost; indeed he might be admitted to lay communion only. Ecclesiastical authority has the right to posit certain conditions for the return of the culprit, and every absolution from excommunication calls for the fulfilment of certain conditions which vary in severity, according to the case.
Excommunication, it must be remembered, is a medicinal penalty intended, above all, for the correction of the culprit; therefore his first duty is to solicit pardon by showing an inclination to obey the orders given him, just as it is the duty of ecclesiastical authority to receive back the sinner as soon as he repents and declares himself disposed to give the required satisfaction. This satisfaction is often indicated in the law itself; for instance, usurpers of ecclesiastical property are excommunicated until such time as they make restitution (Council of Trent, Sess. XXII, c. xi); and again, it is determined by the judge who grants absolution or the indult for absolving. Besides expiatory practices habitually known as “penance”, such satisfaction exacts opportune measures for the reparation of the past, as well as guarantees for the future. It is not always necessary that these measures be executed prior to absolution, which is frequently granted on the solemn promise of the excommunicated party either to accomplish a specified act, such as coming to an agreement with the Church for the property usurped, or simply to abide by the orders of ecclesiastical authority (standi mandatis ecclesi ). In such cases absolution is not unusually given under pain of “reincidence” (ad reincidentiam), i.e., if within a definite period the person censured has not accomplished a certain specified act, he reincurs the same excommunication; his status is just as if he had never been absolved. However, this clause of reincidence is not to be presumed; when occasion requires, it is inserted in the sentence of absolution or in the indult granted for that purpose.
The formula of absolution from excommunication is not strictly determined, and, since it is an act of jurisdiction, it suffices if the formula employed express clearly the effect which it is desired to attain. The formula for remitting the excommunication in foro externo should be such as to absolve validly from public excommunication. Similarly, an excommunication imposed by judicial sentence is to be revoked by an absolution in the same form; occult excommunication may be revoked in the confessional by the sacramental formula. The Roman Ritual (tit. LII, c. ii) gives the formula of absolution used in foro externo and states that in foro interno absolution is given in the usual sacramental form.
“Cardinal O’Malley is out of step with most voters on this very personal decision.”
Luby is an ass. He meant to preface that statement with “of the so called Catholics that I have talked to... “
The Catholic Church is NOT a democracy.
The is an Abortion mill on Commonwealth Ave. Boston.
When they botch an abortion and have to call an ambulance......
They arrive with the lights and siren off...so the general public is kept unaware of the the fact that women and babies are suffering butchery.
ummmmm no... listen stooopid, the Parishioners are out of step with the CHURCH, NOT the other way round.
You’re Right!
Kennedy Katholics... just like at the cafeteria.
Because of the pending work to get F.O.C.A passed by the pro-abortion Congress, is there a possibility of working to have LIFE CHAINS sprouting up around the country, especially Massachusetts, with “FIGHT FOCA” being the main focus of the LIFE CHAINS?
-so is the Catholic Church supposed to be a democracy now? LOL....what a joke this is.
To give you the short answer, yes, the penalty of excommunication may be removed. The Church’s goal is to save people, not condemn them.
The long version would include explaining that there are several different forms of excommunication, and so how one comes back into a state of grace and full communion with the Church varies.
“Behold I stand at the door and knock...” The Church always welcomes back a repentant heart, but some people refuse to answer the knocking at the door.
Hey, that is a good idea! Because many folks don’t know what FOCA is, or the extremes it goes to. My priest homilized on it some weeks back, and started by asking for show of hands “who knows what FOCA is?” ONLY 7 HANDS WENT UP! And this is in a conservative, pro-life parish.
Another idea...make “STOP FOCA” the theme of the Life March on Washington DC that occurs every January. It’s one of the few pro-life events that gets media coverage, and will also dovetail with the inauguration.
**He probably is out of step with the cafeteria Catholics of his diocese. **
Exactly — I wanted to say it’s the CINOs who are out of step here!
boy oh boy ... how often I’ve heard otherwise intelligent people claim they were voting Dem “because they give me my Social Security.” We have created a dependency national mindset, and it’s frightening. Issues like life/abortion or national security/terrorits take a second seat to their checks. Just unbelievable.
No. The Sacrament of Penance (Confession) is what lifts the excommunication. You have to admit you are wrong, go to Confession, serve the Penance (the sacrament isn't complete without it) and you're done.
People who don't know the history of the church don't get that there is an unfortunate tradition (at least in these times) among the hierarchy to exhaust every possible pastoral avenue before "pulling the trigger." The roots of this are in the 16th and 17th centuries when excommunication WAS used as a political tool, not as a corrective measure as is it meant to be. They don't want to overuse it. It's time for that mentality to give way to ecclesial bravery.
And, BTW, it is the flock in Boston which is out of step with the Church, NOT the archbishop. It's his job to instruct the flock and frankly, they are sticking their fingers in their ears and saying, "La la la la la la la. I can't HEAR you. La la la la la la." The rest of us can pray for them to open their hearts, but if they don't, they've made their choices. You can't fool The Almighty.
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