WP: 48 House Catholics Warn Bishops' Stance Could Spark Bigotry

[kskiska]

Forty-eight Roman Catholic members of Congress have warned in a letter to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that U.S. bishops will revive anti-Catholic bigotry and severely harm the church if they deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.

The letter's signers, all Democrats, include at least three House members with strong antiabortion voting records.

"For many years Catholics were denied public office by voters who feared that they would take direction from the Pope," they wrote. ". . . While that type of paranoid anti-Catholicism seems to be a thing of the past, attempts by Church leaders today to influence votes by the threat of withholding a sacrament will revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice, which so many of us have worked so hard to overcome."

The three-page letter, dated May 10, was sent to McCarrick because he heads a task force of U.S. bishops that is considering whether, and how, the church should take action against Catholic politicians whose public positions are at odds with Catholic doctrine.

(snip)

One of the signers with a solidly antiabortion voting record, Rep. Bart Stupak (Mich.), said in an interview that bishops "are making these statements thinking they're undermining the candidacy of John Kerry, when what they're really undermining is the Catholic church."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41041-2004May19.html

[k in IA]

1. I'm glad they did something. It is easy to do a personal protest

but hard to actually do anything to really impact the Catholic church.

I know someone who during the last Prez election was at mass and the priest made a comment that everyone needed to vote for anti-abortion candidates. She is a Republican, but pro-choice, and she got up and walked out. I never heard if she was alone or if anyone else did the same thing.

American Catholics do not want the church telling them how to vote! That sh#t doesn't fly here!

[BabsSong]

2. They should have put a p.s. on the letter that read:

"and if you don't bug the hell out of politics, all fat cat Catholic Dems like KERRY, KENNEDY clan, etc. will stop sending you checks" or "want us to make 'sex with a kid' carry the death penalty"????

[bloom]

3. They would just about HAVE to do this

if they want to BE politicians themselves who are also Catholic.

Or else they WOULD have to do whatever the Pope/Cardinals/etc. told them to do politically. Who cares what the contituants think. Just ask their Bishop what they should do.

[Peregrine]

4. Maybe the IRS should take a look at their tax exempt status

Since they seem to want to be a PAC instead of a church.

[dusty64]

12. That only applies to religions

that do NOT toe the extreme right line. Re: the thread on the Unitarian church. I'm glad a lot of Catholics are smart enough to see through the hypocrisy of their disgusting double standard, completely ignoring pro death penalty and pro illegal war proponents.

[meow2u3]

13. I wonder if Opus Dei has its tentacles in those bishops

This dictatorial attitude smack of OD influence. OD is notorious for perverting the Catholic faith with totalitarian, fascist tendencies; right-wing hypocrisy unbecoming of a real Catholic; and using the threat of denial of the sacraments to force Catholics to toe their line.

[MidwestTransplant]

5. Who would the Pope for?

How about Jesus?

[DFLforever]

6. All I can say is I've never been prouder to be an EX-catholic.

[hang a left]

7. Someone made a very interesting comment the other day on a

topic similiar to this. If the church is gonna dog pro-choicers, it should do the same with pro-death penalty politicians as well.

[GOPBasher]

8. Or pro-war?

Why didn't they go after all the catholic republicans for supporting the war, since the Pope was against it?

[Auntie Bush]

17. and go after all those pro-child molesters.

How the hell did they let all those molesters give others communion and listen to confessions and dole out punishment.

[R Hickey]

9. This nutty Biship in St Louis ...

...came from La Cross, Wisconsin. He was so nutty they promoted him, and sent him down river to get rid of him. At least he's not a child molester... that I know of.

A friend of mine who teaches Catholic school, here in Wisconsin, heard him speak last year, and she says he's nuts. Nuts!

[saigon68]

10. I watched him in action once

HE'S A TOTAL WHACK JOB.

He also has no problem W/ THE CHIMP putting those 300 + people to death in Texas either.

"OOH PLEASE DON'T KILL ME" mocked the chimp

[R Hickey]

19. I spoke too soon when I said the GOP Bishop wasn't a child molester...

I just found out that two years ago this St.Lewis Bishop did, in fact, place a pedophile priest into a school system. The school was St Mary's in Altoona, Wisconsin, near Eau Claire.

The priest stayed only a few weeks, but created quite a stir, because people quickly found out about his past, from previous news paper stories, and none of the teachers wanted to risk having him around the children. He was soon sent somewhere else.

But this Bishop who now refuses communion to John Kerry, knew he was sending a pedophile priest into a school system. He never warned St. Mary's about the priest's child molestation past, and only said that the priest had had "emotional problems."

[union_maid]

11. They're making a very valid point

There are a lot of Roman Catholics in both parties in my area and it's largely a pro-choice area, too. In any race with one Catholic nominee, this would certainly be an issue. Church doctrine vs. public policy has already been an issue more than once in political contests here.

[PATRICK]

14. I know they accused Jesus of being crazy

at times when he got carried away in his speeches, but the case is more legitimate here. I think the pols are having a hard time getting a handle on this. Oddly the most bigoted churchgoers on all sides are the fundamentalists(whatever stripe). Yet they are politically united on certain hot button issues that leave no room for depth, subtlety or choice. What SOME of the more extreme American bishops are saying as they sway their weaker and confused brethren, mirrors exactly the parrot jungle of the religious right. The agree on putting the government in the bedroom, defining narrowly family values, loving authoritarian trips, Pollyanna nostalgia and above all- punishment. They also consign each other to hell and the forces of the Anti-Christ. Strictly speaking then, they are plain nuts clinging to a supra-Biblical agenda. They seek to be Jim Jones without Kool-Aid or machine guns because they have the US government and mindless ideology.

So the benighted Church leaders in America, purposely emasculated and chosen from he ranks of moderate to staunch conservative mindsets, are a Vatican blowback come home to roost. They are not ripe for American schism or liberalism from the left, but a soft backdoor to takeover by the American Schismatics of the Right. It is not bigotry that is the danger. The ones responsible have it by the truckload, what do they care?

The problem is a loss of moral leadership in times of crisis and dismal assertion of triumphal control devoid of grace. As I noted once before, looking back on American bishops work during the Vietnam years, one would think the burning issue of the day was whether or not to allow one's hand to touch the Body of Christ in communion. One or two bishops made anti-war stances and stuck out like sore thumbs. In America therefore, it is the laity who exercise vital moral leadership and the bishops who have been made into sheep purposely by the Vatican. In much the same way do mega-corporations sheepify the leadership of governments. Thus do those who purport to know better alienate people from the institutions they need desperately and have more faith in than their own leaders. Stalin appointed bishops too- all of them. The results seem pretty much the same: corruption and ruination of the hierarchy in its true spiritual role. Eventual mental meltdown.

By opting for the lawless and extreme right, death dealers and enslavers par excellence, certain bishops have conjoined with their fundie compatriots in joining up with what John's Gospel calls the "World" if not the Flesh and the Devil, that overweening tyranny of oppression that wars against men's souls as it steals their bodies, the World order that is never new and as old as night. Therefore, of course, completely hostile and against Jesus' own warnings on the exercise of Christian authority. Bishops like these more than likely love the lace and gold and the deference of submissive sycophants.

And in history we have had much much worse so the Vatican will settle for the dull damage of mediocrity and call it order and progress.

And wouldn't it be nice if they had open dialogue with Catholic politicians on something more than school funding so they could discuss these issues and not trade misunderstood barbs?

[gasperc]

15. and by default support Bush who orders bombs dropped

killing thousands of civilians, unintentionaly(of course), and how does that square with the teachings of Jesus.

As a Catholic, I will truly fear the wrath of God upon my death when he judges me, that I didn't do more to sacrifice my own life if necessary to halt the horror occuring in Iraq IN OUR NAME!

[Barkley]

16. Even Judas got Communion at the last supper!- n/t

[struggle4progress]

18. NYT article: Democrats Criticize Denial of Communion by Bishops

Forty-eight Roman Catholic members of Congress who are Democrats have signed a letter to the cardinal archbishop of Washington, D.C., saying the threats by some bishops to deny communion to politicians who support abortion rights were "deeply hurtful," counterproductive and "miring the Church in partisan politics."
<snip>
The letter's signers, including about a dozen who are considered anti-abortion Democrats, said the bishops are "allowing the church to be used for partisan purposes.'' They also question why these bishops made abortion a litmus test while ignoring politicians who voted counter to the church by endorsing the death penalty and the war in Iraq.
"They're helping destroy the church by dividing it on issues, and they're politicizing the Eucharist," said Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, one of the anti-abortion Democrats who signed the letter. "The bishops came out against the war, and I don't see them saying to all the people who voted for it, you can't receive communion because you voted for an unjust war."
<snip>
Only four of about 300 American bishops have announced that they intend to deny the sacrament to policymakers who support abortion rights in their dioceses, according to a telephone poll of bishops conducted by Catholics for a Free Choice, a Washington advocacy group. Fifteen more have said that Catholic policymakers who support abortion rights should voluntarily abstain from communion. The vast majority, 135, said that they did not agree with denying anyone the Eucharist or that it would be the last resort.
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/politics/20bishop.html?th

They mentioned the death penalty and the Iraq war in their letter! It sounds like some of them have been reading threads at DU!