Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 05-22-2004, 09:54 AM

Put faux uproar into context (may require subscription)

Tim Rutten reports that the communion controversy involves only 4 of the nation's 100 Catholic bishops, and was fueled by Republican Party operatives who want to use the abortion issue to split Catholics from the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the "liberal" press is ignoring this headline from the Tablet, a Catholic newspaper in Britain: "The American President, George W. Bush, will be asked by the Pope at their Vatican meeting on 4 June to stop basing his policies in the Middle East on the use of force, a leading curial cardinal said this week."

Quote:

. . .
The sequence of events began late last month in Rome, when Cardinal Francis Arinze, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, held a press conference to announce the clarification of certain liturgical practices involving the Eucharist, as Catholics call Communion.

But in the question-and-answer session that followed, a couple of correspondents for conservative U.S. news organizations repeatedly badgered the Nigerian cardinal about whether American politicians who cast votes for abortion rights should be allowed to receive the sacrament. A weary Arinze finally said that there is a Catholic Church in the United States, it has bishops and the issue was theirs to deal with pastorally.

That gave the American right the opening it had been looking for. For some time, an influential group of conservative Catholic laypeople has sought to use the abortion issue as a two-edged sword: As theological traditionalists, they want to use electoral politics to achieve within the church what they otherwise cannot obtain — a purge of those who disagree with them. As social conservatives, they hope to use the church's theology to win through religion what they cannot achieve by politics — alienating Catholics from the Democratic Party, whose platform is broadly in agreement with the bishops on a host of social and moral issues.

The most prominent of these activists is Deal Hudson, publisher of the conservative Catholic magazine Crisis and an advisor on Catholic issues to both President George W. Bush and the GOP. . . .

Oresta · 05-22-2004, 06:29 PM

I don't see Republicans getting any political mileage out of this. American Catholics have been going their own way from church teachings for a long time on core issues such as birth control and divorcees' remarriage. Similarly, legal abortion has not made single issue voters of Catholics.

Gary Wills has pointed out that most Catholics are Democrats. asserting their affiliation is due to the Catholic sense of communal responsibility to one another - which translates to support of government human services. Whether this is true or not, bishops who refuse communion to progressive office holders may find themselves doing so at their own peril.

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05-22-2004, 06:29 PM	#2
Oresta Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Detroit, MI Posts: 1,107	I don't see Republicans getting any political mileage out of this. American Catholics have been going their own way from church teachings for a long time on core issues such as birth control and divorcees' remarriage. Similarly, legal abortion has not made single issue voters of Catholics. Gary Wills has pointed out that most Catholics are Democrats. asserting their affiliation is due to the Catholic sense of communal responsibility to one another - which translates to support of government human services. Whether this is true or not, bishops who refuse communion to progressive office holders may find themselves doing so at their own peril.

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