Activists Push Church to Excommunicate Pro-choice Candidate

The Detroit News ^ | August 27, 2002 | Joel Kurth

[happytobealive]

PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP -- Anti-abortion activists have launched a small but vocal movement to excommunicate pro-choice Attorney General Jennifer Granholm from the Roman Catholic Church.

Since early June, a group of 10-30 protesters have picketed outside of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Plymouth Township, where the Democratic nominee for governor is a member. Foes say Granholm is a heretic because she is Catholic yet adamantly pro-choice.

[Right To Life]

Way to go.

[happytobealive]

Mother Teresa taught us to see Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor. Prof. Peter Singer shows us that the demon also wears distressing disguises.

I can't think of a more distressing disguise for Jesus.

[Right To Life]

..."when sharp scissors aren't aimed at your own skull its much easier to be tolerant of 'choice' "...

The not-in-my-backyard mentality is responsible for much of what is wrong with the world!

Which means pro-lifers have to stand up to the "it is none of your business" crowd!

[fatima]

Happy,you sent out a general invite-people are willing to travel with a date and a contact person,please call your local pro-life group for this-if this is just a great idea then someone needs to put it together.Also,we do have a national pro-life paper ,if someone is able to put a informative story together-that would take 2 months.

[happytobealive]

Happy,you sent out a general invite-people are willing to travel with a date and a contact person,please call your local pro-life group for this-if this is just a great idea then someone needs to put it together.

I will notify my local organizations.

But at least 2 FReepers are going to be there this weekend, if anybody else has the flexibility to do it.

[happytobealive]

Also,we do have a national pro-life paper ,if someone is able to put a informative story together-that would take 2 months.

What's the website for this?

[Arthur McGowan]

The excommunication occurs when there is formal, and direct collaboration in the abortion, and if the collaboration was necessary for the abortion to take place. Having the abortion, performing for it, paying for it, driving someone to an abortion mill--these are the types of collaboration in question. Politicians who vote to fund abortion, or who vote down restrictions on abortion--they are NOT good Catholics, but since it is impossible to point to a particular abortion and say that they caused THAT abortion, it is the common opinion of canonists that they don't incur the excommunication.

But "not having been excommunicated" is the lowest possible standard one could conceive of for being a "good Catholic." I'm sure there are plenty of people in Hell who never incurred an excommunication. To go to Hell all that is needed is mortal sin. And there's NO doubt that being pro-abortion in public office is a mortal sin--a whole collection of mortal sins.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Being a Protestant, I'm afraid that my boycott of that mass will have little effect :-) [Hey, you were the one who pinged me]

[Notwithstanding]

Hey - please join us - it is a very tame bunch who is committed to Life and activist by nature. All stripes - from UAW types to grad students to grandpas and young kids and college students.

[Notwithstanding]

No way - the original protester is Greek Orthodox, and the woman whose signs were unconstitutionally confiscated is a Protestant. We all get along just fine because we all love babies (and presumably all of us love Jesus, too).

[pray4liberty]

Well, women who have abortions are already automatically excommunicated.

Not exactly. Only the unrepentant (like Granholm) are considered excommunicated, or unworthy to receive the Eucharist. However, women who have confessed of this sin, repented and did penance will not be excommunicated.

Most become pro-life activists within the Church and minister to other post-abortive women. Otherwise, if you are excommunicated no matter what, the Church is basically saying you can't be saved no matter what you do or how sorry you are. And that is a lie that completely belies the whole purpose of the Passion of Christ. He came to save all sinners--yes, even women who have had abortions.

The Eucharist is meant to help the struggling, not be a reward for the perfect. ~Pray

[HiTech RedNeck]

A boycott is a refusal to go. I don't go to Catholic church services anyhow, so the point is... :-)

[ConservativeTeen]

I might go, and I am not Catholic. I am Protestant.

[MissAmericanPie]

Wouldn't it be great if they were sucessful.

[happytobealive]

Well if I'm going to Plymouth this weekend, I have to get some sleep and some work done?

I look forward to seeing whoever's there there?

Good night.

[Tailback]

My wife is Roman Catholic and I simply can't understand the Catholic church's policy on supporting political candidates. For example, my mother in-law is a devout liberal (public school teacher) and votes primarily for pro-choice democrats. When Oregon had the death with dignity ballot measure (legalized suicide) she was rabidly against it. I just don't understand the hypocracy withing the Catholic church. I heard more Catholics screaming bloody murder over the legalized suicide measure than the total on anti abortion stuff. In fact, when we went through the pre-marriage stuff there was hardly any talk about abortion and the official church stance.

[Notwithstanding]

http://observer-eccentric.com/local/Plymouth/index.html

Protesters have right to opinion

Say what you want about the Right to Life protesters who have been showing up at Our Lady of Good Counsel every Sunday for most of the summer.

Since they didn't start showing up until the election season, you could say it's a political ploy staged by opponents of Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, the Democrat nominee for governor and an OLGC parishioner who dares admit she's pro-choice.

You can say they're over-zealous radicals who go too far to prove their point.

But whatever else you say, this much is also true: They have the right to be there to peacefully protest on behalf of what they believe.

Now they're suing because Plymouth Township police officers apparently confiscated some of what they deemed to be the group's more disturbing signs, those bearing the images of aborted fetuses.

Never mind the group was merely exercising its right to free speech and lawful assembly. Never mind the signs fall under the protection of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The police were responding to complaints from OLGC parishioners and leadership. They were right on one account: The photos on those signs were graphic, depicting disturbing images that are tough to look at.

According to police reports, the officers were acting on an ordinance that bans the display of pictures depicting murder or other violence, not realizing Supreme Court decisions had rendered the ordinance unconstitutional.

The right to free speech is one of our most sacred and most protected freedoms. The Right to Lifers are simply expressing their opinions. They believe Granholm has abandoned her Catholic upbringing, and the Catholic teachings, with her pro-choice stance.

Leaders at OLGC have offered support to Granholm. Fr. Doc Ortmann did so publicly in an article published in the parish newsletter. "Those who regard (Granholm) as a 'heretic' do not understand, nor do they wish to understand, that choice is in itself a blessed gift," Ortmann wrote.

That's all well and good. But those are Ortmann's beliefs, freely stated in the church bulletin. Protesters disagree, and their views are no less protected, no less sacred, just because they're accompanied by signs depicting disturbing images.

Plymouth Township police, rarely faced with protests over such controversial issues, would be well-served to have learned a valuable lesson: The views with which we disagree are just as important as those we believe.

And it's their job to make sure it stays that way.

[wardaddy]

BTTT and G-d bless!!!

[pray4liberty]

..they will endure whatever they had prenatal babies put through.

Maybe so, maybe so...something akin to your whole being going up in pain.