 Kerry's Easter Communion in Doubt (32 views) Subscribe   
  From:  David (DavidABrown)    Apr-6 8:22 am  
To:  ALL   (1 of 7)  
 
  858.1  
 
John Kerry's Abortion Position Causes Easter Church Conflict

by Steven Ertelt
www.LifeNews.com Editor
April 5, 2004

Washington, DC (www.LifeNews.com) -- Where Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will attend church over the Easter holiday is becoming a political issue thanks to Kerry's position in favor of abortion.

If Kerry, who is Catholic, sticks with his plans to attend Easter services in Boston at a local Catholic church, he may possibly be refused communion on one of the most important days for Christians worldwide.

While other parishioners take the Lord's Supper and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Kerry may not participate, thanks to Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston.

O'Malley has told Catholic elected officials who are pro-abortion that they should not be receiving communion and that they should refrain from taking part in the sacrament on their own.

The Kerry campaign has declined comment on his faith and his Easter plans. 

Kerry has said that, as an elected official, he must separate his personal religious views from his actions as a legislator and that it is not "appropriate in the United States for a legislator to legislate personal religious beliefs for the rest of the country."

But some critics question whether Kerry has sincere religious beliefs, since so many of his public policy positions -- on abortion, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research for example -- run contrary to the teachings of the Catholic church.

"People ask: 'Is he making up his beliefs to take the red states?' " Timothy Thibodeau, a history professor at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y. told the Washington Times. "Kerry's problem is that people doubt his sincerity. They think he is cooking up his religion just in time to run for the election."

In February, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said he would offer the politician a blessing rather than giving him full communion, because of his pro-abortion position.

A spokesman for Kerry's campaign told the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper that Kerry disagreed with Burke's decision.

"The archbishop has the right to deny Communion to whoever he wants, but Senator Kerry respectfully disagrees with him on the issue of choice," Kim Molstre, a Kerry campaign representative, said.

Kerry could avoid the issue by worshipping at a church that is more tolerant of his pro-abortion views.

While in St. Louis, he worshipped at a Baptist Church and yesterday he attended African Methodist Episcopal Church.

 



David A. Brown
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  From:  Goss (RGoss9)   Apr-7 11:51 am  
To:  David (DavidABrown)    (2 of 7)  
 
  858.2 in reply to 858.1  
 
The Church has an out from this statement. This is based on the misapplied political language where some assume that "pro choice" is the opposite of "pro life." 
If Kerry has a pro choice policy, this says nothing about his being for or against abortion. 
Ever notice how so many of the "pro life" group are "pro death" when it comes to the death penalty, and killing "innocents" abroad with "collateral damage." 
In China, with its one child per family policy, to be pro choice (to choose to have a child), is pro life. 

Unless Kerry actually states that he believes in abortion as a method of contraception, the Church would be going off on a limb if communion was denied. I suspect if the bishop in question wants to make a point, he might be better served if he asks Kerry to go to mass in another diocese where the issue is not so hot. 

Goss 



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Edited 4/7/2004 2:53 pm ET by Goss (RGoss9) 
  
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  From:  David (DavidABrown)    Apr-7 1:30 pm  
To:  Goss (RGoss9)   (3 of 7)  
 
  858.3 in reply to 858.2  
 
Not at all.

 

The issue here is, is it the Church-Bible that declares what Christianity is or is it the whims of the masses including the ever deceiving and lying politicians.

 

You are defiantly mixing apples and oranges in your post.

 

#1 killing unborn babies  Abortion is inhumane and unchristian.

#2 The death penalty is for convicted criminals albeit not a perfect system but a system of checks and balances none the less something no Abortion has.

#3 No-one wants collateral damage least of all the Church.

 

God Bless you,
David A. Brown



David A. Brown
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  From:  Goss (RGoss9)   Apr-7 11:28 pm  
To:  David (DavidABrown)    (4 of 7)  
 
  858.4 in reply to 858.3  
 
You missed my point, just because Kerry's record says he is pro choice does not mean he is pro abortion. 
Apples and oranges means one is using standard related to two unrelated criteria. 
The Bible does not say thou shalt not kill because if it did, all killing by any human by another would be out - including wars and executions. 
The literal translation, which supports this is that the commandment is thou shalt not commit murder. 

There are two criteria for what is or is not a murder - God is the first, but he is not very clear which is which. Therefore we have to trust our consciences and wait what he says later. The second is the society in which the killing occurs. In our society, our laws have defined murder as a specific type of crime, and execution of a murderer not - and this is in line with the Bible. We also apply it to what is known as a just war - Iraq does not meet John Paul's interpretation of a just war - so a Catholic in good conscience should consider this if he is in the military in Iraq. 
On the other hand, society has determined that abortion is not a murder while the Pope, and others have. 
The delima comes when we have two cases where society determines that the act of killing life in war, executions, and the unborn is not murder, but the pope says all three is, including the unjust war in Iraq. So a Catholic does not have the option of using the same criteria to argue both ways. That leaves one with one's conscience. In my case, I believe all three are wrong - so for me to do any of the above would be a sin against God's commandments. I had no problem with the just war in Korea or WWII, so as an exmarine, killing in these wars would not be a problem. At the same time, there were others whose conscience would not allow them to partake in these wars, and I respect them for this. 

Remember apples and oranges are both fruit, so your metaphor fails.

Goss 
  
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  From:  David (DavidABrown)    Apr-8 5:45 am  
To:  Goss (RGoss9)   (5 of 7)  
 
  858.5 in reply to 858.4  
 
And Hitler and Kerry are both Politicians so whats your point?

 

God Bless you,
David

 



David A. Brown
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  From:  David (DavidABrown)    Apr-12 8:29 am  
To:  ALL   (6 of 7)  
 
  858.6 in reply to 858.1  
 
John Kerry's Communion at Catholic Church Upsets Pro-Life Groups

by Steven Ertelt
www.LifeNews.com Editor
April 9, 2004

Boston, MA (www.LifeNews.com) -- Pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is planning to attend a Catholic Church to celebrate Easter and he will take communion. The decision has pro-life groups smarting, saying that he is out of step with the church on abortion and should not take the sacrament.

Recent visits to Protestant churches had opened up the question of whether Kerry was planning to skip attending a Catholic Church to avoid opening himself up for further criticism.

Now, Kerry is planning to attend Easter Sunday services at Boston's Paulist Center.

Kerry has said on several occasions that his Catholic views do not drive his public policy positions. He opposes official Catholic church views by backing embryonic stem cell research in addition to supporting abortion.

"I fully intend to practice my religion separately from what I do with respect to my public life and that's the way it ought to be in America," he told reporters in Ohio this week. "There is a separation of Church and State in America and we have prided ourselves about that all of my lifetime, all of our history."

But Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, tells LifeNews.com that "Kerry proves by his own remarks that he is dangerously confused about three things: abortion, Catholicism, and 'separation of church and state.'"

If referring to his "public life," Kerry means "supporting the dismemberment of babies, then not only is he separating his public life from religion, but also from basic human decency," Pavone said.

"Regarding Catholicism, Kerry shows no understanding of the Church's teaching on the formation of a proper conscience," Pavone explained. "Regarding separation of Church and State, that has nothing to do with the state abandoning its responsibility to protect helpless human children." 

While Kerry says the nation has "prided ourselves" on the separation of Church and state, Pavone responds, "We have also prided ourselves on the protection of life and the rejection of violence."

Kerry and his wife, Theresa Heinz, regularly attend services at the Paulist Center, which is not far from their Boston penthouse.
Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston has told Catholic elected officials who are pro-abortion that they should not be receiving communion and that they should refrain from taking part in the Christian sacrament on their own.

In February, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said he would offer the politician a blessing rather than giving him full communion, because of his pro-abortion position.

"I would have to admonish him not to present himself for Communion," said Burke. "I might give him a blessing or something. If his archbishop has told him he should not present himself for Communion, he shouldn't. I agree with Archbishop O'Malley."

"It's ironic that at the same time that he is making these statements, the details of the abortion procedure are being publicly scrutinized in courtroom proceedings about the partial-birth abortion ban. Kerry has no excuse for ignorance about what abortion is," Pavone told LifeNews.com.


 



David A. Brown
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   From:  David (DavidABrown)     Apr-16 7:06 am  
To:  ALL   (7 of 7)  
 
  858.7 in reply to 858.1  
 
by Steven Ertelt
www.LifeNews.com Editor
April 15, 2004

Washington, DC (www.LifeNews.com) -- In what is shaping up to be one of the key battles of the 2004 presidential election, pro-life Catholics continue to dog Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for being seriously out of step with the Catholic Church on key issues such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

On Thursday, Priests for Life, a leading pro-life organization made up of more than 1,300 Catholic priests, criticized Kerry for continuing to back abortion.

"[I]t is of grave concern to us when someone seeking the highest office in our land claims to share our faith and ignores the most fundamental injustice our country faces, namely, abortion," the group said in a statement.

The group says it objects to Kerry's classifying the abortion issue as a "private matter" -- a throwback to the line first employed by former New York governor Mario Cuomo -- whereby a Catholic elected official can claim he is "personally pro-life" but refuses to back legislation codifying those beliefs.

"It causes even greater concern when public officials try to privatize the issue, as if the shedding of blood can ever be simply a matter of 'private religious faith,'" Priests for Life added.

Cuomo, once a leading presidential wannabe, was never the nominee. But, Kerry will become the first Catholic to be a major political party's presidential nominee since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision allowing abortion.

Father Frank Pavone, the co-founder and director of Priests for Life, previously told LifeNews.com that it would be a "long campaign" for Kerry if he continued to belittle the Catholic faith with his unending support for abortion.

With the growing intensity of the battle, Pavone's observation is coming true. 

However, Kerry backers are not standing around waiting for someone else to respond to pro-life leaders like Pavone. Columnist Dick Ryan, in a Newsday op-ed, comes to Kerry's defense.

Ryan criticizes Catholic officials for trying "to play kingmaker and manipulate Catholic voters by smearing Catholic candidates out of step with Vatican authoritarianism."

Part of the debate has revolved around whether or not Kerry should be taking communion at Catholic churches. 

Ryan said Catholic leaders have no right to deny communion to Kerry because, "Nobody likes bullies, especially a group of men who were invisible and timidly inarticulate at the height of the worst scandal in the history of their church," referring to the sexual abuse scandals.

Frances Kissling of the so-called Catholics for a Free Choice agrees.

"I hope the bishops are satisfied that the sacraments of the church are now the subject of a media frenzy," Kissling said of Catholic officials, calling them "eucharistic Peeping Toms."

Meanwhile, Kerry is expected to meet today with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick , the archbishop of Washington, D.C. 

Cardinal McCarrick, who has questioned Kerry's anti-life views on stem cell research and abortion, is heading up a task force for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on how to handle politicians like Kerry whose views run counter to the church.

St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said he would offer the politician a blessing rather than giving him full communion and Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston has told Catholic elected officials who are pro-abortion that they should not be receiving communion.

However, McCarrick said he would be "uncomfortable" denying communion to pro-abortion politicians.

Yet, Priests for Life says the bigger issue is Kerry's support for abortion.

"The central issue regarding Senator Kerry is not about Communion, or whether the bishops will allow it. It is about violence against children, and whether public officials will allow it," the pro-life group said. "We challenge Senator Kerry to either renounce his support of legal abortion, or to publicly admit what he's supporting, and what abortion practitioners already testify to under oath: that abortion dismembers and crushes the heads of babies."

Despite the Kerry defenders, Pavone's group will be ready to rally pro-life Catholics. Priests for Life has more than 1,300 priests who have signed a statement saying they will "preach on abortion as the single most important electoral issue."

 



David A. Brown
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