You just cited multiple other moral issues. But the Catholic church did not choose to publicly disavow people for those.
A Catholic in this thread admitted they may not agree with their church on abortion. If so, they would be guilty of the same “crime,” but they have not been publicly excommunicated. And whether they are guilty or not, many Catholics who are pro-choice publicly have not been publicly excommunicated. Most Democratic Catholics are pro-choice, in fact. It’s kinda part of the platform.
Thus it is obvious, with even a minimum of critical thinking, to see that this was not something they were required to do by their religion. It was a choice to make a public statement about these particular political figures.
Is it? What is the teaching that says they must publicly announce the excommunication of anyone who is seen to politically support the pro-choice movement?
The closest I can see is that someone is automatically excommunicated when they procure an abortion. And that, if an offense that causes automatic excommunication is done in public, they may choose to publicly inform them.
And, even then, an automatic excommunication requires the priest to still allow them to partake in Mass. Only an excommunication Sententiae ferendae would forbid one from taking the Eucharist, yet I see nothing under the requirements where anything about abortion would fit.
It doesn’t actually seem to me that it’s a religious requirement. At best it looks like a political interpretation of a religious requirement. At worst, it seems like overreach.
Well, let’s see, there is the mega church leader arrested on 26 counts, including child rape, here
But church leaders denied it. Maybe they can move this guy to another mega church and everybody can just forget the whole thing.
Then there is Missouri, requiring medically unnecessary pelvic exams as a requirement to get an abortion, here
Gotta love those Bible beaters, forcing the state to in effect rape women if they seek an abortion.
Hopefully these awful events will help focus attention on the horrible scourges of consensual homosexuality among adults and also the vermin streaming across the Southern border. Remember folks, everyone is a sinner, so just because it seems 1 out of 5 church leaders is a child molester these days doesn’t invalidate the Eternal Rule of Both Sides Do It: you’re a sinner too, so shut your fucking yap about all this rape.
You’re not reading the context of the conversation. If bobot had just said “get the fuck out of public policy, you regressive assholes”, or criticized the tax-exempt status of religious organizations, there would no doubt have been enthusiastic agreement. But he suggested that it was a violation of separation of church/state, and that’s what was being addressed. It may be a violation of church/state in a more generalized sense of principle, but in the U.S. that usually means the First Amendment - and some were pointing out that the Establishment Clause limits government actions wrt religion, it does not bar religious organizations from lobbying government.
ETA: and similarly the tax-exempt status is similarly intended to prevent government interference with religion, it was not intended to be conditional upon religious organizations staying out of politics - although perhaps it should be.
All these posts and no one has yet mentioned Rabbi Hillel Handler, Friend of Measles?
*"Handler has a long history of supporting radical causes on the far right-wing fringes of Jewish opinion.
Handler has fiercely attacked observant Jews for reporting child sex abuse to police, claiming such accusations should be handled by rabbinic authorities. He once even defended a rabbi who was convicted of raping his own daughter, saying the girl was lying about the abuse.
Handler also opposed efforts to regulate metzizah b’pei, a controversial circumcision rite that health officials say can spread deadly herpes to newborn boys."*
The problem isn’t just the odd child molester, that problem is the culture that puts “the sin of scandal” as you call it at a higher priority than the safety and well being of children. This is what causes priests to worry more about what calling the cops on a child molester will do to the churches reputation than about all of the children who will suffer life altering emotional damage if the cops aren’t called.
Were these legislators excommunicated? I didn’t get this from the story. Maybe there’s more to this than I know, but I didn’t understand that they were actually excommunicated.
Is that the same as excommunication? Because I might be told not to prevent myself for Communion if I was in a state of mortal sin, but that’s not the same as excommunication.
I presume that you meant to use “present” there, but let’s let that slide. It’s my understanding that the medicinal penalty of excommunication is nothing more nor less than the act of barring its subject from receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist; it strikes me that whether it is done by ordering the subject to not present themselves, or by ordering ministers of the Eucharist to turn the subject away amounts to a distinction without a difference* (that said, I’ve yet to meet a Roman Catholic voter who has announced that they would refuse a candidate their vote solely on account of the candidate being ineligible to receive the sacrament).
What’s your understanding of the meaning of the term?
*If Bricker were still around, he could probably explain the difference within the distinction (if any). I realize that I don’t speak for everyone, but I miss him.
It may be a distinction without a difference. Really. Or it may not. I don’t know.
“Excommunication” is a formal process, and the excommunicated person is excluded from all the sacraments. There is a process to lift the excommunication. You’re right to say that it’s medicinal, and not necessarily permanent.
A person in a state of mortal sin may not receive Communion, but may go to confession, confess his or her sins, receive absolution, and then receive the Eucharist. If I have committed a mortal sin, I may not receive Communion until I have dealt with that, but I am not excommunicated.
Or Tomndeb, our preeminent expert on all things Catholic. Which I am not (either preeminent or expert).
A twofer: bad cop and bad religious leader! After a career upholding the law and protecting us, one Grayson Fritts became a pastor. This weekend he called LGBTQ people animals and called for their execution.
Though not exactly a religious leader, per se, Whitfield Academy in Kentucky happened upon a picture on FB of or birthday party for one of its students (on her mother’s account), which led the Baptist-affiliated school to expel the student for violating their moral code.
What ever did the student do?
She wore a white sweatshirt that had some rainbow striping on it while sitting, smiling, in front of her rainbow-frosted birthday cake. (Curiously, I seem to remember a day when the rainbow was a religiousy symbol – perhaps that is something that angers the faithful, that their symbol of mass murder has been so fiendishly stolen.)
Granted, the faculty is squicked by this teenager who, to them, seems inadequately feminine, but hey, they have some pretty high standards they have to uphold, lest that god person find itself in a particularly smitey mood.
Thanks for bumping this. I forgot about it. There are lots of Religious Fuckheads to catch up on.
This is not in any way meant to excuse the Religious Fuckheads or blame the family, but I’m kinda curious why they were in that school to begin with. They seem like not-awful people, and the Baptists are among the most awful of Christian denominations. I wonder if the family considers themselves Baptist, or if there were just few other educational options in the area.
Be careful, though. I was raised in a Baptist environment, and they were decent people. However, that was long, long ago, in a place where religion was not so much the forefront of the local culture. We went to a tiny church, barely bigger than a four bedroom house, that sat in the looming shadow of the massive synagogue across the parking lot.
You see, we were American Baptists, which are the [del]cult[/del] sect that is more mildly tempered. At least, back then it was (and my dad was a decent, live-and-let-live guy to his dying day a decade ago). The Southern Baptists are the fuckwipes who try to sow misery and bullshit across the land, the assholes that Uncle Ronny hitched his wagon to, starting us on a downward slide toward theocracy.
And even then, probably a goodly fraction of Southern Baptists are actually tolerable people. Keep the conversation steered away from religion and, often, you can get along with them just fine. In fact, the scary thing is, many of them look just like normal people, and the special glasses that reveal *them * always seem to have some sort of defect that renders them inoperable.
Nobody’s mentioned the Wildmon bastards? Donnie, Timmie, Walker (who names their kid Walker?) and whatever other Wildmons there are associated with the American Family Association. Any religious association with the word Family in their name is almost guaranteed to be nothing but a bunch of inbred brainless bigots.
And there’s the asshole son of Billy Graham. Billy wasn’t so bad, considering the time in which he was preaching. Towards the end of his life, he admitted that he didn’t believe anymore, but what else was he going to do? But his son Franklin, just an absolute piece of shit, bigoted as anyone you could name. And there is the unimaginatively named Jerry Falwell Jr, even worse than his father and equally as fuckheaded as Frankie.
And then there’s Ray Cuntfart… Comfort… or did I have that right the first time? Intellectually dishonest is not the worst of his traits, just the most noticeable. And his boytoy Cunt Cam-moron. Sanctimonious piece of shit.
And there’s Peter Popoff. How the fuck does this fucking fuckhead still have followers? A known conman, exposed 30 years ago, and still taking advantage of the gullible and stupid.
Fair point. I was only thinking of the Southern Baptists, and I should have made clear I was calling their doctrine and leadership awful and not their members, many of whom I’m sure manage to be pretty decent folks in spite of the garbage flung at them from the pulpit.