Monday, October 27, 2008

Americans United complain that the Catholic Church is too involved in politics

The Connecticut Supreme Court Decision legalizing same sex marriage becomes official tomorrow with it's publication in the Connecticut Law Journal and is expected to begin the week of November 10th.
Priests at Catholic masses around the state are telling parishioners about the importance of the upcoming election and "Question 1" which is the Constitutional Convention question. The church is backing up their campaign with a paid TV advertising schedule urging people to vote "Yes'" on question one.

from the website of http://www.wtnh.com/
Gay rights groups are comlaining that the Knights of Columbus are funding commercials supporting a Constitutional Convention which may be able to codify marriage as between one man and one woman. The Catholic fraternal organization is also funding commercials promoting Proposition 8 in California. They are afraid that the Church may be awakening the sleeping giant; the Catholic laity. And they may be right.
With only days remaining before the November 4 U.S. election, a tally has shown that over a quarter of America's bishops have published articles, issued statements or given interviews where they have declared that the most important issue for voters in their choice of a new president is the candidate’s stance on abortion.
The tally was put together by well-known Catholic journalist and blogger Rocco Palmo, and published in The Tablet, a Catholic periodical (See Rocco’s article here: http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/12189). Catholics across the nation have taken the message pro-life to heart, as their pastors have repeatedly called on them to make the right to life the defining issue and to vote accordingly.
HT Catholic Online
The pastor of my parish spoke eloquently from the pulpit yesterday about loving the sinner but hating the sin. He then told us to support the Constitutional Convention, or YES on Question 1. I offered him a lawn sign which I had picked up at the Diocesan Pro-life Conference the day before.
He told me to put it on the church lawn. Priests have guts around here.
Remember the prohibition against clergy having freedom of speech came from then Senator Lyndon Johnson's efforts to silence Baptist preachers who objected to his corruption. It's time this law was challenged and removed. Minsters and priests led the Civil Rights and Abolition movements, and lead the pro-life movement. They have always reminded Americans of their duty to be obedient to God's commandments.
On Saturday, Fr Benedict Groeschel reminded prolifers, that Ben Franklin said that the Constitution is made for the governance of a religious people. Our form of government cannot control a society which is bent on moral depravity. Killing 4,000 babies a day and enforcing the re-education of schoolchildren that sodomy is normal is the most absolute moral depravity possible. We are heading for collapse, economically, socially, or a nuclear disaster if we do not change our ways. Mother Teresa said,
"A nation which kills its children cannot survive".
If the Catholic Church failed to opposed such abberations, woe to her leaders when they stand before the throne of Almighty God.
Read this article by Deacon Keith Fournier on how Catholic pulpits accross the nation are thundering with the truth.
HERE is Bill Donohue's response to the attack on Bishop Seratelli.
AMERICANS UNITED FLOATS STEREOTYPES
Catholic League president Bill Donohue sent a letter today to Lois G. Lerner at the IRS. The text is printed below:
Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has made public his objections to Paterson, New Jersey Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli’s recent letter to his constituents on the subject of abortion. Lynn has asked you to investigate this matter, charging that “It is impossible to interpret this passage [the concluding paragraph of Serratelli’s missive] as anything but a command to vote against ‘the present democratic candidate’ because of his promise to sign a certain piece of legislation disfavored by the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.”
Perhaps it has something to do with the notoriously anti-Catholic origins of Lynn’s organization, which once called for high-ranking members of the Catholic clergy to be stripped of their constitutional rights, that led him to conclude that any FYI statement made on the part of the Catholic clergy regarding public policy matters constitutes a “command” to Catholics on how to vote. Indeed, only someone who has bought into the worst stereotypes of the Catholic Church would assume that bishops are in the business of giving marching orders to their congregants.
Lynn is a member of the clergy of the United Church of Christ, a religion that supports abortion rights. Moreover, Reverend Lynn makes no bones about his rabid pro-abortion views. He is entitled to that position. But just as it would be absurd for me to say that he has no right to exercise his freedom of speech by telling his congregants that certain candidates for public office hold views that are very different from their own on some issues, it is equally absurd for him to accuse Bishop Serratelli of crossing the line. In short, there is a profound difference between a passionately expressed opinion and a “command.”

HT Catholic Online

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