Can you be pro-choice and still be a good Catholic (at all) or are pro-choice Catholics both morally incoherent and lack “a well-formed Christian conscience”?
Tom Daschle’s Duty to Be Morally Coherent
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isn’t this the same church shuffling child molestors around to different churches?
Well, I guess if you have a private club you get to choose who can be a member. But if the Catholic church excommunicated every pro-abortion Catholic, I’d guess the rolls of that church would be reduced by at least 20% in this country. In Europe, a whole lot more. I’m guessing, just guessing, that there’s a bunch more politiics involved in this than just abortion…
He wasn’t excommunicated.
Feh. Daschle can call himself whatever he wants, and the Catholic Church can excommunicate him if they want. Go on, try it, you big cowards. It’ll be all kinds of entertaining for us pro-choice atheists.
The Catholic Church, on this issue, refuses to accept that people can have a morally formed conscience, even one formed through years of Catholic education, and come to a position that is not in line with the Church’s. They allow such freedom of intellect on other matters. Yet not on abortion.
The Church’s stance on the death penalty, being ardently opposed to it, is just as fundamental and based on the same basic beliefs regarding the sanctity of human life. Will we now see the Church sending such letters to pro-death penalty Republicans and Democrats in Congress? I doubt it. That smacks of some form of ecclesial hypocricy. Pardon my spelling.
If the Church chooses to push out any elected official who disagrees with the Church’s positions on issues randomly selected as litmus tests on one’s Catholicity, then the Church may expect to soon find itself in a position of irrelevency.
If a church demands of its lawmaking followers that they make everything they are against prohibited by law, then shouldn’t they have demanded that he make laws against lying and adultery? If not, then what’s the difference?
Well, the Catholic church considers abortion to be murder. Perhaps they consider murder to be more serious of an issue than lying.
A better argument for consistancy might be for the Catholic church to apply this abortion doctrine to other Catholic legislators, including those whose last name is Kennedy.
The Catholic Church also considers the death penalty to be murder. To enforce such a stance on abortion and not the death penalty is hypocritical and inconsistent, to say the least.
Resolved: The Catholic church is hypocritical and inconsistent.
I’d like to see them do to Kennedy what they did to Daschle. Fat chance.
Let’s remember, though, that the Catholic church certainly has no monopoly on the h/i dept.
How many Catholic congresscritters supported the Iraq war, against the Pope’s directives?
How many Catholic congresscritters are there, and on which sides?
I don’t think the Bishops have any standing to restrain someone from writing about himself that he is “catholic”. They can kick him out, deny the sacraments and even formally excommunicate, but really it’s not clear if Carlson is attempting to initiate such formal proceedings with Daschle. The most he can do is chase him around the country saying “no, you’re not!” , which is an interesting mental image.
However, as to something that was mentioned earlier: Senator Kennedy would be under the authority of the new Archbishop of Boston. Somehow I’m under the impression the Archdiocese of Boston is going for the next few years to be treading veeery, veeery lightly on anything that might rankle the congregants. Until and unless the US Episcopal Conference, or Rome itself, decides to crack down across the board – and (1) it hasn’t happened, (2) we saw how brilliantly USEC was able to efficiently handle the one issue that should have been a no-brainer, (3) Ratzinger’s policy statement is not an order to take specific actions --, it need not affect Teddy if Daschle is in trouble with his Bishop in South Dakota. Until that happens, it could even be that Tom Daschle is welcomed as a Catholic at a diocese in DC, Maryland or Virginia and thus not deprived of participation in his religion.
However, if Bishop Carlson is taking such a hard line, HE should be warning everyone in SD who is pro-choice, pro-death-penalty or pro-this-war that they’re outside the teachings of the Church. He’s engaging in cheap politics.
How is he not a member if they don’t go for a full blown excommunication?
Does anyone remember Senator Bob Kerrey being in a similar situation a few years ago?
Resolved: The Catholic church is hypocritical and inconsistent.
I’d like to see them do to Kennedy what they did to Daschle. Fat chance.
Let’s remember, though, that the Catholic church certainly has no monopoly on the h/i dept.
Not sure of party breakdown but Adherents lists 150 Catholic congressfolk.
Oops, read a bit down more, and it appears that about 92 of the Catholics in Congress are Democrats.
Definitely. In fact, in many ways, I would consider the Catholic Church to be one of the intellectually and doctrinally most constistent and predictible of the world’s religious organizations. But they’re usually a lot more effective and subtle than this outright attack on Daschle.
Does the Catholic hierarchy really expect Catholic legislators to impose Catholic doctrine upon a multi denominational society by force of law?