LOST AT SEA: CONSENSUS IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION

by Judie Brown

Recently, I came across an announcement that truly troubled me, not only as a Catholic, but also as a grandmother whose grandchildren will one day be attending college. The news was that on November 11, at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, California, legal scholar Douglas Kmiec, also a dissident Catholic, was scheduled to give the 13th annual Newman C. Eberhardt Lecture.
Lest we have so quickly forgotten, Kmiec is a "Catholic" who argued for months prior to the election that a Catholic could in good conscience vote for Barack Obama.

He did this much to the chagrin of faithful prelates like Archbishop Charles Chaput, persisted right up until Election Day and apparently continues the campaign even now.

Kmiec wrote a small tome entitled Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama. The book is simply an extension of his many articles on the subject, in which he repeatedly states, as though he were an authority of sound mind, Catholics will note that McCain and Huckabee's pro-life postures collapse when it comes to the death penalty . . Beyond life issues, an audaciously hope-filled Democrat like Obama is a Catholic natural. Anyone seeking “liberty and justice for all” really can't be satisfied with racially segregated public schools that don't teach. Blah, blah, blah!

Clearly, Kmiec relegates the act of murdering a preborn child in cold blood to nothing more than one of many debate topics that happen to include the death penalty, immigration, poverty and so forth. He does not see Obama's total embrace of aborting real children with real identity as anything more than a different way of approaching this one "issue." Commentaries such as his make me sick, and believe me, Kmiec has received the press to prove that when it comes to undermining Catholic teaching and misleading Catholics in profoundly disturbing ways, Kmiec is the new leader of the “anti-Catholic Catholic” movement in America. Read the entire post.

Comments

  1. In Catholic teaching, abortion and the death penalty are very different moral issues
    From Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below.

    Catholics in good standing can support the death penalty and even an increase in executions, if their own prudential judgement calls for it.

    What Ardent Practicing Catholics Do (1)
    By Fr. John De Celles, 9/1/2008

    "Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is … a grave and clear obligation to oppose them … [I]t is therefore never licit to … "take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it."

    In other words: it is always a grave or mortal sin for a politician to support abortion.

    Now, some will want to say that these bishops-and I- are crossing the line from Religion into to politics. But it was the Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi) who started this. The bishops, and I, are not crossing into politics; she, and other pro-abortion Catholic politicians, regularly cross over into teaching theology and doctrine, And it's our job to try clean up their mess.

    But there's something more than that here. On Sunday, before the whole nation, she claimed to be an "ardent, practicing Catholic." Imagine if someone came in here and said "I'm a mafia hit man and I'm proud of it." Or "I deal drugs to little children." Or "I think black people are animals and it's okay to make them slaves, or at least keep them out of my children's school."

    Are these "ardent practicing Catholics"? No, they are not."

    And neither is a person who ardently supports and votes to fund killing 1 to 1.5 million unborn babies every single year. Especially if that person is in a position of great power trying to get others to follow her. Someone, for example, like a Catholic Speaker of the House, or a Catholic candidate for Vice President of the United States, or a Catholic senior Senator who is stands as the leading icon his political party. Like the proud and unrepentant murderer or drug dealer, they are not ardent Catholics. They are, in very plain terms, very bad Catholics."

    But the reason I say all this is not because I want to embarrass them or even correct them — they’re not even here. It’s because of you. Because back in the 1850’s when Catholic bishops, priests, and politicians were either silent or on the wrong side of the slavery debate, they risked not only their souls, but the souls of every other Catholic they influenced. I cannot do that, and I won’t do that.

    Some would say, well Father, what about those people who support the war in Iraq, or the death penalty, or oppose undocumented aliens? Aren’t those just as important, and aren’t Catholic politicians who support those “bad Catholics” too?

    Simple answer: no. Not one of those issues, or any other similar issues, except for the attack on traditional marriage is a matter of absolute intrinsic evil in itself. Not all wars are unjust — and good Catholics can disagree on facts and judgments. Same thing with the other issues: facts are debatable, as are solutions to problems."
    -----------
    Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) "stated succinctly, emphatically and unambiguously as follows":

    "Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia." (2)

    (1) "What Ardent Practicing Catholics Do: Correcting Pelosi", National Review Online, 9/1/2008 6:00AM
    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTY1MzAwOTc5MmViMzUyYzM5YmY3OWFkYzdkMzY0YzM=


    (2) "More Concerned with 'Comfort' than Christ?", Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick: Catholic Online, 7/11/2004 http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php NOTE: Ratzinger was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and delivered this with guidance to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

    ALSO:

    Cardinals, Bishops and Congressmen Slam Pelosi on Abortion
    http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082601.html

    New York Cardinal - Pelosi Not Worthy of "Providing Leadership in a Civilized Democracy"
    http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082605.html

    Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
    e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
    Houston, Texas

    Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

    A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

    Pro death penalty sites

    homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

    www.dpinfo.com
    www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
    www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
    www.coastda.com/archives.html
    www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
    www.prodeathpenalty.com
    http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 Sweden
    www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html

    ReplyDelete

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