Posted by
Always To The Right on Sunday, November 16, 2008 1:38:46 PM
A South Carolina priest who sent a letter warning parishioners who
voted for Barack Obama that they may have placed themselves outside of
the communion of the Catholic Church has received the backing of his diocese.
The Diocese of Charleston agrees with Fr. Jay Scott Newman’s letter
despite the controversy it generated, which brings the debate over
“formal participation” into a new context
Most Catholic bishops have stopped short of this conclusion. They have
focused their criticisms on self-proclaimed Catholic officeholders who
vote to enable abortions, calling those votes “formal cooperation” with
the intrinsic evil of abortion. According to the catechism, in paragraph 2272, formal cooperation in abortions constitutes an automatically excommunicating event
So far, the church has not officially applied 2272 explicitly to the
act of voting for a pro-choice candidate. They’ve had enough trouble
rousing the energy to apply church teachings to politicians such as Joe
Biden and Nancy Pelosi. They’ve only been interested in doing that
much for just a few years, but this letter is the next logical
progression if the church wants to assert its beliefs more clearly in
the parishes.
Catholic Democrats objected to the statement:
“Father Newman is off-base,” said Steve Krueger,
national director of Catholic Democrats. “He is acting beyond the
authority of a parish priest to say what he did. … Unfortunately, he is
doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners
who did vote for Senators Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual
cost to them for his words.”
It’s an odd moment indeed when someone accuses a parish priest of being off-base for quoting the catechism.
Krueger appears to have more concern with membership statistics than
the reason for belonging to the church in the first place. As far as
the “spiritual cost” for talking about abortion and the church’s
position, one might wonder whether Krueger doesn’t concern himself with
the “spiritual cost” of supporting abortion. On what basis would a
Catholic conclude that the spiritual cost of discussing the catechism
would outstrip that of abortion itself?
Will the church broaden its definition of “formal cooperation” to
explicitly include supporting abortion rights and voting for
pro-abortion candidates? If so, Krueger’s prediction that many
Democrats may leave the church will probably come true. However, the
church has to apply its beliefs rather than worrying about popularity
contests.
Update: Via Tom Shipley, the statement of Monsignor Laughlin seems less than a full endorsement of Newman’s letter, and the spokesman or the reporter got it wrong:
This past week, the Catholic Church’s clear, moral
teaching on the evil of abortion has been pulled into the partisan
political arena. The recent comments of Father Jay Scott Newman, pastor
of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, S.C., have diverted the
focus from the Church’s clear position against abortion. As
Administrator of the Diocese of Charleston, let me state with clarity
that Father Newman’s statements do not adequately reflect the Catholic
Church’s teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary are
repudiated.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Man has the right to
act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral
decisions.” The Catechism goes on to state: “In the formation of
conscience the Word of God is the light for our path; we must
assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must
also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by
the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others
and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.”
Christ gives us freedom to explore our own conscience and to make
our own decisions while adhering to the law of God and the teachings of
the faith. Therefore, if a person has formed his or her conscience
well, he or she should not be denied Communion, nor be told to go to
confession before receiving Communion.
The pulpit is reserved for the Word of God. Sometimes God’s truth,
as is the Church’s teaching on abortion, is unpopular. All Catholics
must be aware of and follow the teachings of the Church.
We should all come together to support the President-elect and all
elected officials with a view to influencing policy in favor of the
protection of the unborn child. Let us pray for them and ask God to
guide them as they take the mantle of leadership on January 20, 2009.
That sounds like a vacillation, not an endorsement. On one hand,
Laughlin repudiates Newman, but on the other hand, notes that church
members have to follow church teachings on abortion. Laughlin says
that anyone who thinks they have a clear conscience can take communion,
and yet the “teachings of the Church” clearly state that anyone who
formally cooperates in abortion is automatically excommunicated,
whether they feel guilty about it or not.
This, unfortunately, has been the kind of double-talk that leads
people to believe that abortion is compatible with the Catholic faith,
when the church itself teaches that it fundamentally is not.