Rocco Palmo writes about the USCCB meetings in Baltimore at Whispers in the Loggia:
In the public session, this past campaign cycle's most-forthright hierarchical voice said that his confreres would one day have to deal with their collective "reticence" on the question of Catholic politicians who support abortion rights in defiance of church teaching.(emphasis added)
The history of the church's response to racism, Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton noted in a debate intervention (his second so far), would not be seen in the light it were today had Archbishops Joseph Rummel of New Orleans and Joseph Ritter of St Louis (later a cardinal) not imposed ecclesiastical sanctions on defiant public officials during the civil rights movement.
In this meeting's first public reference to Joe Biden, Martino said that he "cannot have a Vice President-elect coming to Scranton, saying he learned his values there, when those values are utterly opposed to the teaching of the church."
At the outset, Martino acknowledged that his comments might not be the most desired in the room... but even so, they came in his usual fluid, quick, forceful cadence.
Asked after the debate how the morning's executive session went, one prelate from the big center said "You just heard it." Several others later confirmed the impression.
10 comments:
Meanwhile Vice President-elect Biden's own Pastor in Delaware has opined that he doesn't want to deny Rosary Joe communion because he (the Bishop) "doesn't want to be political"! How about being a good CATHOLIC Bishop. Do you want to be THAT, you spineless toady!
The Diocese of Scranton has had to pay record payouts to children who have been sexually abused by the clergy. Of course Biden did not learn his values there - he learned them from his own family - from his Irish Catholic mother - and has been a model father to his children, one who is out in Iraq putting his life on the line for this country (however misgiven Bush's war is). It's no wonder our corrupt clergy are listened to less and less by us Catholics. They have lost our respect and they will not win it by hounding a good man. This is the same church that sees fit to give a papal knighthood to someone like Rubert Murdoch. For what? Nude Page 3 girls on the Sun newspaper? One can only despair at the behavior of our clergy. They talk about denying people communion; many of them have long lost the right to be giving communion.
Brendan, if you feel that the Catholic clergy have lost the right to give communion, then go join the Episcopalians where there are priests in openly gay relationships and women bishops.
Indeed, how dare you lay your hand on the Lord's Annointed! even David would not lay his hand on King Saul in that cave though he had the chance, as 1st Samuel 24:11 (in the Catholic NAB, verse 10 in the Protestant KJV) states:
"You see for yourself today that the LORD just now delivered you into my grasp in the cave. I had some thought of killing you, but I took pity on you instead. I decided, 'I will not raise a hand against my lord, for he is the LORD'S anointed and a father to me.'"
Anything I want to say now I really ought not to. You use a twisted perversion of the facts to hide Obama's and Biden's open support of baby-murdering. How dare you! The subject is baby-murdering, a practice you personally endorse because you voted FOR the Obamanation of Desolation. Where at the end of life do YOU think that YOU will be going for supporting baby-murdering?
Stupid liberal democrat Marxist idiot.
So why does Brendan ignore the corruption of his liberal democrat groups such as ACORN?
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2008/08-175.shtml
Catholic Campaign for Human Development Ends All Funding to ACORN
BALTIMORE—Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the national anti-poverty program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has ended all funding to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Bishop Roger Morin, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Catholic Campaign for Human Development, announced in a November 11 report at the USCCB Fall General Assembly.
The report follows:
Report of Bishop Roger Morin, Chair of the CCHD Subcommittee to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
My brother Bishops,
As chair of the Bishops' Subcommittee for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, I welcome this opportunity to thank you and our Catholic people for your generous and steadfast support of CCHD and it's essential work to help break the "cycle of poverty" in urban neighborhoods and rural communities in dioceses across our nation.
Those who were at our gathering last night know CCHD is alive, well and doing great work. CCHD is how we together practice what the Church teaches about the option for the poor, solidarity and subsidiarity, the principle of participation, the dignity of work and the rights of workers.
CCHD is a wonderful partnership between our Conference of Bishops and local diocese in raising resources from a collection in most dioceses the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and reviewing proposals and funding groups of low income people working to assist in helping people pull themselves from poverty and dependence.
I want to thank you for this partnership and report to you and the Catholic community some important steps we have taken and are taking to insure that CCHD uses these resources wisely and carefully to fund only those activities which conform to CCHD's guidelines and mission.
I have reported to you as bishops three times on the steps we have taken and are taking to address serious questions and concerns that have arisen regarding the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN. Let me summarize these actions:
In the past, CCHD has funded proposals from local organizations affiliated with ACORN when those activities conform to the CCHD guidelines and when the local diocesan CCHD director and the local diocesan bishop explicitly approve the proposal. Many of these local ACORN groups have done impressive work preventing home foreclosures, creating jobs opportunities, raising wages, addressing crime and improving education.
Last June, CCHD cut off funding to all ACORN groups when we learned about a major case of embezzlement eight years ago which raised serious concerns about national ACORN's financial accountability, transparency, governance and organizational integrity. Even though CCHD was only funding local ACORN organizations, and not these national structures, we felt it was necessary to cut off CCHD funding and review support of all ACORN groups.
More recently, the Subcommittee also became concerned about widespread reports of ACORN involvement in alleged voter registration fraud and political partisanship. As a result of the cut-off earlier this year, no CCHD funds were involved in any of these activities. However, the allegations intensified our questions and problems around ACORN's organizational integrity, competence and non-partisanship. Therefore, we extended the cut off of CCHD funding of any ACORN organizations.
The Bishops' CCHD Subcommittee met November 8-9 and reviewed this matter at length and discussed it in depth. The Bishop members of the Subcommittee voted unanimously to reaffirm, extend and formalize the decision to end CCHD funding of ACORN organizations because of serious concerns about financial accountability, organizational performance and political partisanship. While not all the specifics can be known, we simply had too many continuing questions and concerns about these serious matters to permit CCHD funding of ACORN groups. This cut off means that no CCHD grants were given to ACORN groups this year (using funds from the 2007 CCHD collection) and no funds from the coming collection (to be taken up in on November 23-24 in many dioceses) will go to ACORN in any place or at any level.
In addition to this funding cutoff, the CCHD Subcommittee and staff have taken a number of other steps:
-- I am chairing a special working group who will continue to monitor and act in these matters.
-- CCHD and the USCCB have secured the services of specialists in forensic accounting.
-- CCHD, USCCB staff and I have met with ACORN leaders to express our serious concerns and to seek answers to specific questions.
-- We continue to consult with our CCHD Diocesan Directors to seek their guidance.
CCHD's current criteria and guidelines prohibit partisan activity and funding of any group that engages in activities contrary to Catholic moral teaching, whether or not those activities are funded by CCHD. These criteria are actively enforced and have led CCHD to deny funding to many groups and to quickly terminate any group that violates these prohibitions. The Bishops' CCHD Subcommittee and staff are reviewing these existing CCHD's policies, grant agreements, and other safeguards in order to reaffirm and strengthen our protections in areas of Church teaching, financial and organizational accountability, and partisan political activity. We are also examining ways to affirm and articulate the continuing efforts of CCHD in language clearly reflecting the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, which are at the heart of our mission.
I share these steps in detail so that you and the Catholic people can know that CCHD has responded quickly, carefully and effectively to protect CCHD's resources and mission. We will distribute copies of our report, a set of Question and Answers and a copy of the CCHD criteria and funding guidelines.
We have acted decisively in this instance, because it is essential that that the great work in so many communities in so many dioceses not be overshadowed or tainted by the actions of a few. Everyday in countless ways, low-income people with the help of CCHD and the Church are coming together to defend their lives and dignity as children of God, to make their neighborhoods and communities safer and better, to work for better jobs at just wages, to improve schools and make housing more affordable. CCHD is the Gospel at work.
I want to reassure you and the Catholic community that our Bishops' Subcommittee is vigilant in assuring that the resources of CCHD are well used. More importantly, I want to thank you and our Catholic people for your steadfast support of CCHD and urge our Catholic people to continue to give generously when the CCHD collection is taken up the weekend after next in most parishes.
CCHD is an essential way the Catholic Church in the United States carries out in our own day Jesus' mission "to bring good news to the poor, liberty to captives, new sight to the blind and to set the downtrodden free." (Luke 4)
Brendan,
Indeed there are sinful bishops. But their sin cannot destroy their very office, established by Christ.
When I was young, my brother and I often got into fights. My parents never spared me punishment because my brother was in the wrong. Neither can we let abortion proponents off the hook because some bishops have done wrong, too.
By the way, the notion that sinfullness negates the ability of a priest to dispense the sacraments is a heresy that has been condemned many centuries ago.
Anon,
Most of your post is right on. It's unfortunate that you had to close it with name-calling.
Sorry, Steve. I apologize to Brendan. I simply have no tolerance to the disinformation being disseminated by those who refuse to obey our bishops. I shall have to add this to my confession list.
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=1149
Vatican official warns of 'apocalyptic' Obama presidency
November 17, 2008
The former president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity said that "American suffered a cultural earthquake" with the presidential election of Barack Obama, and warned that the Obama administration will sorely test Christians. "For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal," Cardinal James Francis Stafford told an audience at the Catholic University of America. "We will know that garden." He alluded to the "extremist anti-life platform" that Obama had promoted during his campaign, and said the incoming President's impact on Christian living could be "aggressive, disruptive, and apocalyptic."
The cardinal, speaking at an event hosted by the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, centered his remarks on the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae. In the 40 years since the appearance of that encyclical, he said, "the United States has been thrown upon ruins." Comparing the tumultuous year of the encyclical's release with the year of the Obama victory, he said: "If 1968 was the year of America's suicide attempt, 2008 is the year of America's exhaustion."
Cardinal Stafford, who is now the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. Before his 1996 appointment to head the Pontifical Council for the Laity-- a post he held until 2003-- he had been Bishop of Memphis, Tennessee; and later Archbishop of Denver. He was raised to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II in 1998.
St. John was very direct with his condemnation of Jezebel at the Church of Thyratira in Revelation 2:18-23. In the same manner, I think our Bishops should be direct and forthright with Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy, Kucinich, Leahy and every other so-called Catholic politician who mis-lead not just members of the Body of Christ, but the whole world with their hypocrisy. It is a public scandal to allow these politicians to partake of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus while they publicly defy Church teaching by openly supporting "a woman's right to choose" on national TV. It's not a matter of judging whether any of these politicians are going to hell or not. It's a matter of setting the proper example for behavior. If these politicians while publicly pontificating positions contrary to Church doctrine (e.g., on abortion), are allowed to partake of the Holy Eucharist, then what kind of example is that for the rest of the Body of Christ?
Maybe Joe Biden is basically a good man....I don't know one way or the other. BUT he is pro-abortion, and he did fight against appointment of anti-abortion Justices to SCOTUS because of his perception of their positions against Roe v Wade. So Joe Biden has to be publicly barred from Communion. It's not a political statement. Rather, it's exactly what St. Paul did in 1st Timothy 1:19 and 20:
"Some, by rejecting conscience, have made a shipwreck of their faith, among them Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme."
In the same manner, our bishops have to hand over to Satan Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy, Kucinich, Leahy and every other so-called Catholic pro-choice politician in order that "they may be taught not to blaspheme".
This is a serious matter. The Body of Christ has to be purged.
Yes, Jesus love Biden, Pelosi, etc. And Jesus loves unborn babies, too. Biden, Pelosi, et al., are supposed to be Catholic adults, but they aren't behaving that way. Who knows what the state of their souls is? It's their behavior on a national - even international level - that is such a scandal. An example has to be made of them, not as punishment to them, but as a means first of providing the right example to the members of the Body of Christ and second as a means of prompting these politicians to conversion and repentance. The intent is to save the lives of babies.
A public scandal must be publicly dealt with in utmost seriousness. I for one congradulate our holy Bishops for having come this far, and I pray for their strength and courage to continue the good fight.
Paul P.
I just stumbled across your blog. I have a question I hope you can answer for me. In all honesty, I cannot understand how a person can claim to be a Catholic and vote for a Democratic candidate. Where is the balance?
By Guillermo Bustamante
To further clarify the clear liability of the USCCB, for confusing ignorant Catholics into supporting heretic-evil policies of “politically correct pro-gay-sick-degenerate-put-dick-in-excrement & pro-abortion Catholic politicians”:
History will INCREASINGLY SHOW A DAWNING OF THIS BLAME-SHAME from the USCCB, when they did not show deep repentance for the pedophile scandal TO THE ROCK SUCCESSOR OF PETER BENEDICT XVI, and KNOWINGLY-PUBLICLY TO TV-WORLD-VIEW, DISTRIBUTED THE EUCHARIST in his April DC Mass, TO THOSE POLITICIANS-formal-intellectual authors of the BUTCHERING-greatest genocide known to mankind.
THIS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THAT HORRENDOUS SCANDAL IS AUGMENTED WHEN THE ENTIRE GLOBE WATCHES yet!!! the VP, Speaker and other sacrilegious lawmakers of the most powerful country on earth, boasting that they are CATHOLIC: name usage STILL approved by the USCCB to scandalize the one billion Catholic in the planet!
Prophet Malachi:
“1.6 …says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. You say, `How have we despised thy name?'
7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. And you say, `How have we polluted it?' By thinking that the LORD's table may be despised. (...)
2 1 "And now, O priests, this command is for you.
2 If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings; indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart.
3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung upon your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of my presence.”
Sincerely
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