Posted on 06/26/2006 1:55:29 PM PDT by NYer
WASHINGTON, June 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At the installation Mass of the new Archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, Thursday, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the representative of Pope Benedict XVI, was seen giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion Senator and former Presidential candidate John Kerry. The incident was reported by the Catholic News Service (CNS), the official news service of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
CNS states: "During the Mass, Kerry, who supports keeping abortion legal, received Communion in the hand from Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States and Pope Benedict XVI's representative to the U.S. bishops."
LifeSiteNews.com formally requested a clarification from the office of the Apostolic Nuncio. No reply was sent from Archbishop Sambi's office though LifeSiteNews.com was informed that the nuncio received the request for clarification.
LifeSiteNews.com also spoke with the Communications Assistant of the Archdiocese of Washington about the matter. Mark Adkinson indicated that the incident was likely not intentional by indicating that Archbishop Sambi was administering Holy Communion on the side where the dignitaries were seated.
CNS also reported that Archbishop Wuerl shook hands with Senators Kerry and Ted Kennedy as he processed into the church. "During his entrance procession, the archbishop shook hands with Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts, seated side by side in the third row along the center aisle," reported CNS.
However, Adkinson also downplayed the significance of the greetings telling LifeSiteNews.com that the Archbishop shook hands with "hundreds of people" as he processed into the church.
The issue of allowing pro-abortion politicians to receive Holy Communion has loomed large in the Catholic Church in the United States with a committee on the matter having been chaired by former Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick concluding only last week. While it was finally decided that bishops should decide for themselves on the matter, the church's canon law and the man who now serves as Pope Benedict XVI have indicated that such politicians "must" be denied communion.
Stake? Kindling? Kerosene? Contact ninenot for membership info!
If a person is pro-abortion, and the Church knows it, they should be immediately excommunicated, and no two ways about it.
Of course, they should be able to attend Mass, and hopefully, the graces they receive in Mass will give them the charity, wisdom, and strength to do the right thing.
Dear Sun,
"If a person is pro-abortion, and the Church knows it, they should be immediately excommunicated, and no two ways about it."
I'm not disagreeing with you about what should be.
I'm disagreeing with you about what is.
You said that Mr. Balestrieri had a formal reply from the CDF incidating that Mr. Kerry, and others like him, are definitively excommunicated latae sententiae.
Would that it were so!
The actual story, at least according to the CDF consultant who supplied the answer quoted by Mr. Balestrieri, is that Mr. Balestrieri wrote to the CDF, and the CDF was under the impression that he was a theology or canon law student of some sort, and referred him to the CDF's consultant for an INformal reply. The CDF's consultant thought he was dealing with the question of a student, and answered with his own opinion.
Mr. Balestrieri then presented this private opinion to the public as a formal judgment of the CDF. It apparently wasn't, although I wish it had been. I don't know whether Mr. Balestrieri was genuinely confused or not, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
In any event, our problem is that our bishops are mostly unwilling to do this part of their offices, to discipline public recalcitrants.
sitetest
Yes He is the greater Son of David who will rule in the Millennial Kingdom (Ps.110)
I did not watch the video, but if he came to Kerry he should have just walked by him without giving him the wafer.
LOL!
But we will certainly do whatsover thing goeth forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven and pour drink offerings unto her, as we have done,...(Jer.44:17)
The 'queen of heaven' was around long before Mary was born.
You have just used her name for the old goddess worship.
There is no such union, you are either Catholic or Christian, based on Gal.1:6-8.
Nor are you a 'bible believing Christian, since we hold the Bible to be our only and final authority, not tradition.
I show respect for Mary as being blessed to give birth to Christ, but she is just a sinner saved by grace, like I am.
"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." -- 2 Corinthians 6:16
2. I don't care much for your theology and you probably don't care much for mine.
3. I would bet that we agree on an awful lot of things political, though!
4. Maybe we can agree on the fact that you guys are not going to win the social civil war between both of us on the one hand and the Godless heathens on the other without Roman catholic involvement. We Catholics aren't going to win either without alliance with reformed or Bible-Christians such as you. Let's figure out where we can work together and agree to respectfully disagree elsewhere without haranguing past one another as to our theological differences.
5. I will assume that you are an adult who has freely chosen your religious beliefs after Scriptural reading, discussion, listening and listening particularly to a Voice in your heart. Please show the same respect to Roman Catholics that, whether you agree or not with some of our beliefs, we hold those beliefs for similar reasons and are not waiting for you to smack us with some irresistible Scriptural insight that will deliver us from Catholicism. It won't. All but the most weakly catechized among us Catholics will remain Catholic until we die and the converts to us will always far outnumber the converts from us.
6. May God bless you and yours.
Excellent.
I know she had children and thus was not a 'perpetual virgin' (Mk.6:3)
I know she stated that Christ was her saviour (Lk.1:47)
May God bless you also, search the scriptures to see if these things be so. (Acts 17:11)
As I posted previously, I am willing to accept that your faith commitment is the product of your adult examination of the available evidence and your choices arising therefrom through any prism you have applied. You prefer to imagine that you have blazing insights that will pry loose from the only Church founded and guaranteed by Jesus Christ Himself (although the Eastern Orthodox certainly have a legitimate claim to inclusion as the reformation does not) well-catechized Catholics. Some Catholics will jump ship because their personal circumstances make the Protestant toleration of divorce and remarriage attractive. Some Catholics (all too many given our liberal AmChurch bishops) are ignorant of the Roman Catholic Faith and are low-hanging fruit to be gathered by pseudo-Scriptural oompah bands. The Roman Catholic Church is still the largest denomination in the US. The Vatican has been using attrition effectively to put a stop to the apostate bishop problem. Conversions to RCC are quite numerous from all directions seeking the safe harbor plied by the Barque of Peter and of very high quality such as columnist Robert Novak, Senator Sam Brownback, Norma McCorvey, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Randall Terry and many others.
Free Republic is diminished by those who see it as some sort of a pulpit to attack the religions of others or to proselytize for their own flavors of heresy. I no longer initiate these futile flame wars. I participate only in defense of Catholicism against its enemies.
Catholics and Evangelicals and Pentecostals and Orthodox Christians and Orthodox Jews and even politically conservative atheists and agnostics CAN cooperate on issues of mutual interest and commitment in our politics. We cannot do this effectively if we assume wrongly that we have somehow earned the right to squabble in public for the enjoyment of our mutual anti-moral enemies.
I, for one, will NEVER leave the Roman Catholic Church. I am not interested in having the reformed pretentiously preach at me on subjects upon which I regard them as having no credentials whatsoever (by definition). A lot of Muslims think they know their Koran and that I should live according to their errors. They don't interest me either. I realize that they and you are trying to share what you respectively deem most precious to you. I can recognize this as a failed attempt by either of you at trying to extend love. I can do so without considering for even a moment choosing either Islam or the reformation as a substitute for Jesus Christ's own Church.
You will note that I have not proselytized you. You may become Catholic or not as you see fit. We draft no one.
I, in turn, have not (and never will have) the slightest interest in what you presume to think this or that passage of Scripture may mean or that you presume to imagine that Roman Catholicism teaches or believes. Nor should I have such an interest when I have the Teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vicar of Christ on Earth upon which and upon whom to rely in obedience to my Savior and yours.
As evidence that I walked the walk, as an attorney, I represented 1100 pro-lifers arrested in abortion mill sit-ins in Connecticut. Many were not Catholic. Many were Catholic. Each was represented according to his or her own beliefs and not necessarily according to mine although I am certainly pro-life and favor direct action against abortion mills.
The best Christian I ever knew was my mother's best friend Hilda, a verrrrrry old-fashioned Methodist who avoided dancing, drinking alcoholic beverages, smoking, and even coffee drinking. I am not one of those Catholics who imagines that God is somehow restricted to admitting only Catholics to heaven. I hope in God that I will spend eternity with Him in heaven but heaven would be less of a place without Hilda who loved Him to the core of her being and lived accordingly. Her theology was in error but her heart and soul belonged entirely to God by His love of her and her absolutely responsive love of Him. She and my very Catholic mother agreed not to harangue each other about religion or politics (when my mother, unlike Hilda, was still Democrat) although they both died as practicing Republicans and wise women.
Meant to ping you to #94.
If this be the case, then you are one of those Catholics who deny the infallible dogma of the Catholic Faith.
Christianity and Catholicism are synonymous. To state that Catholicism comprises only a portion of a larger Christianity flies in the face of the teachings of the Catholic Church and even the word Catholic itself, as the Catholic Church is the Christian Church, the Universal Church.
The rules around annulments do not suggest this. There are many different situations - she may have an invalid form case, in which only a form would need to be filled out and approved. However, there would still need to be some investigation. The Church does recognize non-sacramental marriages, depending.
Actually, the Church doesn't state this. You may wish to read the Catechism a bit more, or check out the apologists for a more detailed information.
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