Burke goes farther, though, in this statement. Until now, bishops have restricted their criticisms to Catholic politicians who work to support abortion rights. Burke has expanded this into a broader political argument, one that will create more controversy in the pews and in the general electorate, especially with pro-life Democrats who will resent the accusation. The church should pursue their mandate of Catholics first, and avoid partisan shots while focusing on issues instead.
1. It will create controversy in the pews, but that is going to happen regardless as the bishops grow a spine and speak out on issues like abortion. The laity has gone thirty years without being properly catechized and unlearning everything bad is not going to be a piece of cake.
2. Who cares what the general electorate thinks? The Catholic Church isn't running for office in the US, it's working to save souls for Christ. If pro-choice Democrats who are Catholics don't like Church teaching, they can take their ball and go play somewhere else. Why would the general electorate (I'm assuming Ed means non-Catholics) care what the Catholic Church says in the first place?
3. Pro-life Democrats stung by the words of a Catholic archbishop should reevaluate their situation. They've for the last thirty years allowed their party to be hijacked by the supporters of Roe v. Wade and done little to chastise those Democrats who have hypocritically changed horses midstream (Ted Kennedy used to be pro-life. Where is the pro-life Democrat outrage?). If what His Excellency is saying hurts them that much, it's probably more due to their own regret and anxiety at their flimsy position in their own party than actually disagreeing with his words.
4. The church should pursue their mandate of Catholics first... Triumphalism may not be vogue at the moment, but the Catholic Church's mandate is not just Catholics, but the entire human race.
5. The church should [...] avoid partisan shots while focusing on issues instead. The archbishop calling it as he sees it on a fundamental issue of human rights is hardly a partisan shot. Is it a partisan shot when the Vatican was speaking out against the US invasion of Iraq?
3 comments:
I'm a Democrat who supports abortion rights...there are some issues where the Catholic Church is right and the Democratic platform is wrong,but abortion is not one of them.As a non-Catholic,I can't in conscience recommend that anyone become or remain Catholic,while Catholics logically believe that everyone ought to be Catholic.In any event,there is not,nor is there likely to be,an American political party that takes Catholic teaching as its moral guideline for all policies.
I must disagree Louis. Abortion, partial birth abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are the biggest civil rights issues of our time but are ignored for the sake of convenience by the majority of the Democrat electorate. One human being is murdered for the sake of another's convenience. Father's have no legal right to prevent their children from being aborted. Safe sex is not safe as is proven by skyrocketing STD rates. Abortion, like so many other social ideas of the left, is just a great big fat lie. And all of these ideas stem from the single idea that one human being exists at the pleasure of another or can be used by another as a mere object.
I can't in conscience recommend that anyone become or remain a Democrat as long as the Democrats insist on murdering our future.
The RC Church still operates as a weapon of the elite in America. Like the Evangelical Protestant churches, they prop up inequality, subordination of women, and labor oppression. In a not so subtle but methodical manner, the sanctity has come to refer to the unborn. Despite occasional flurries that connect capital punishment, stem cell research and the rights of the elderly with "sanctity," the church has a unique concern for the unborn. A concern that is not extended to young mothers that choose life, but are without prenatal care. Nor is war viewed as vile, evil and unnecessary. Poverty is acknowledged as problematic, but when parishoners admit their reluctance to help the poor stems from personal financial hardship, where is the homily calling for tithing. Yes, times are hard,
but your pastor reminds you of what it takes to heat the church, and the roof is leaking, etc. The US Bishops council lied about the dangers of the recent insurance reform. D'Marzio, in various columns to the faithful spelled out again that the RC Church is obsessed with the unborn, at the expense of the poor, sick and elderly. Federally funded abortion not only excluded, as always by the Hyde Amendment, but Pres. Obama would issue an executive order. Not enough? 40 million Americans should be denied healthcare until a more perfect bill was crafted! Prescriptions for medicare patients left unaddressed - D'Marzio,"the bill is imperfect.." A breast cancer survivor has a reoccurrence and the former catholic school teacher of 35 yrs is denied care by her husband's insurer. Obama, despite GOP polemics and vitriol got an insurance reform bill passed. Dems wanted more. The GOP wanted only failure. Hence, dissatisfaction with the President. The Bishop of Brooklyn and Queens, the US Conference of Bishops, and the Pope are either pro-sanctity or perhaps the church is a tool of oligarchy, as in Latin America for decades. Elite, Landed and preachers of the notion of the greater suffering on earth, the greater God's gifts in the Kingdom shall be for you.
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