[Polycarp]

We may not need a string of highly publicized excommunications, but the Catholic people certainly deserve a more adequate explanation of what appears to be episcopal indifference to prominent Catholics who, in explicit and persistent defiance of the Church's teaching, promote and abet the "abominable crime" (Vatican II) of abortion. Canon law states, "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae [automatically] by the very commission of the offense." Why is a frightened young woman who procures an abortion excommunicated while a politician who encourages her by telling her it is her right to do so, and works to secure her liberty to do so, welcomed at the altar? Why are prominent Catholics who persistently and publicly promote what the Church calls the culture of death apparently immune from public discipline? The Catholic people have waited a very long time for convincing answers to these questions.

Until such answers are forthcoming, it would seem that Senators Kennedy and Kerry are right. "If the bishops can't or won't do anything about that, don't come to me. It's their problem, not mine." Call it taunting, or call it throwing down the gauntlet, but Kennedy and Kerry have rendered an important service by clarifying that it is up to the bishops to make their problem the problem also of Kennedy, Kerry, and a host of others who count on bishops not having the nerve to be bishops. That, at least, is how many faithful Catholics see the matter. If they're wrong, maybe the bishops, or at least some bishops, will explain why they're wrong. Publicly.

Excellent essay!

Ping. (As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, just send me a FReepmail. Please realize that some of my "ping" posts are long.)

[ClearCase_guy]

I live in Mass., so I know Kennedy and Kerry. Their bishop knows them too. I do not want to engage in any Catholic bashing, but I think it is obvious that the Church tolerates them for a simple reason: power (and money) is the primary focus of the church. Attention to doctrine and the plight of mens' souls is secondary (at best).

If you disagree, please explain why Kennedy's can be so pro-abortion without repercussion, and how they can get divorced (excuse me, annulled) so easily.

[Gerish]

Excellent article. Moral authority needs to happen on the part of some U.S. Bishops. Many Catholics have been waiting for this for generations!!!!! You can't exercise that moral authority by hiding under rocks!

[ElkGroveDan]

The way to deal with it, he says, is for the bishops of Kennedy, Kerry, and the many others who take the same position to call them in and say: "Look, we just can't have this. It is causing grave scandal. And your soul is in jeopardy.

Bishop William Weigand of the Sacramento Diocese did just that to Gray Davis. I pray that with time more will, and that they will follow up on their admonishments. Unfortunately, in California we have a Cardinal complicit in all the shenanigans of the far left who I'm certain must have his foot on Weigand's head preventing any further action.

Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cruz Bustamante: three apostate Catholics in the most prominent political election in the country (two of them from the very same parish). What a great message it would send to the world if someone with courage stepped in set the record straight.

[Aquinasfan]

Yet another bishop friend is very candid in saying that we all know the answer to the question: all hell would break loose.

"I didn't come to bring peace, but division." -Jesus

[Aquinasfan]

A few years ago, as I was walking with a friend across the Boston Common after finishing the Walk for Life, we noticed Sen. Kerry pitching in a softball game. We were pretty surprised. Someone on his staff must have screwed up big time. Anyway, we walked up behind the backstop and held up our signs for a few minutes. Then we shouted, "Senator Kerry, defend life!"

He didn't flinch. We hung out for a few more minutes and then moved on.

[vanmorrison]

I believe that the third Fatima prophecy has not been fully revealed by the Church. I believe, as does the Blue Army, that the reason the third Fatima prophecy hasn't been revealed is that it foretells of a period of great heresy and schism within the Church unseen since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Further, the perpetrators of this heresy and schism will be that third of the clerical class who have abandoned the true Church and are working to destroy the Church by undermining it as an institution. This includes the travesties of Vatican II, "Ecumenism", "liberation theology", sexual perversity, equivocation about abortion and homosexuality, and all of the other examples we see of clerical cowardice, duplicity, and rapacity at the highest levels of the Church.

Let us pray!

[freekitty]

All those years and all that money spent by a friend of my parents to get back into the church due to a divorce. Was it a waste?

[Incorrigible]

What we have here, is a failure, to excommunicate!