[lbo-talk] The new Pope and the last (s)election....

[C. G. Estabrook]

How can a church's deciding on the status of its membership be "a brazen
violation of the secular foundations of the US Constitution"?  Would you
have the state order a church to offer someone communion? Now that would
be an obvious violation of the separation of church and state -- the sort
of thing American Christians have worried about since Roger Williams.

Also, it's wrong to say that "Ratzinger ... gave the Vatican's seal of
approval to Church officials who were using the abortion issue to
discourage a vote for the Democratic candidate."  You stop quoting him too
soon.  His next sentence reads,

"When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion
and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is
considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the
presence of proportionate reasons."

Couched in the technical terminology of classic Catholic moral theology,
that's a quite traditional opinion. Many traditional Catholics voted for
Kerry in good conscience.  --CGE

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005, Mike Ballard wrote:


> One of the most blatant examples of Ratzinger’s intervention into the
> political affairs of a country was his role in the 2004 US presidential
> election. A number of American Catholic bishops publicly declared in
> the run-up to the election that they would deny Holy Communion to
> Democratic candidate John Kerry, a Catholic, because of his pro-choice
> stance on abortion rights. Their intervention, a brazen violation of
> the secular foundations of the US Constitution, was tantamount to a
> religious injunction to Catholics to vote for George W. Bush.
> 
> In June 2004, Ratzinger issued a statement of guidance to US bishops
> that, in effect, gave the Vatican’s seal of approval to Church
> officials who were using the abortion issue to discourage a vote for
> the Democratic candidate. In his missive to the bishop of Washington
> DC, Ratzinger wrote: “A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation
> in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he
> were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the
> candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia.”
> 
> full:
> http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/pope-a22.shtml
> 
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