By Tim Rohr
Archbishop Jimenez has released a "Message" titled:
"The important responsibility of Catholics to vote using their Christian conscience."
I'd really like to cut the new archbishop some slack, but after at least 20 years of fighting the bloodlust and filth in this archdiocese, I just don't have the stomach for timidity, especially from the top.
For starters, how about titling the message:
"The important responsibility of Catholics to vote according to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church."
And then how about setting out those moral teachings according to their moral weight, as Pope Benedict * termed it when in a letter to the U.S. Bishops in 2004 he wrote:
“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.”
* At the time he was not yet pope and was the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
Jimenez writes:
"As non-profit groups all members of the Catholic Church in the United States including our Archdiocese of Agaña cannot, by law endorse or oppose any candidate to political office."
This is the familiar duck. I really wonder if protecting the church's non-profit tax-exempt status is what will separate the sheep from the goats in the end, but I'll let that go for now. The archbishop doesn't have to name names.
All he has to do is say:
DON'T VOTE FOR CANDIDATES WHO IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM SUPPORT OR ADVOCATE FOR ABORTION AND ESPECIALLY THOSE CANDIDATES WHO HAVE INTRODUCED ABORTION LEGISLATION.
But apparently that's too mean.
So since he won't say it, I will.
DON'T VOTE FOR CANDIDATES WHO IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM SUPPORT OR ADVOCATE FOR ABORTION AND ESPECIALLY THOSE CANDIDATES WHO HAVE INTRODUCED ABORTION LEGISLATION.
Finally, someone willing to say it clearly
ReplyDeleteTim, take note of the first five sentences in the letter:
ReplyDelete"The Church equips its members to address political and social questions by helping them to develop a well-formed conscience. Catholics have a serious and lifelong obligation to form their consciences in accord with human reason and the teaching of the Church. Conscience is not something that allows us to justify doing whatever we want, nor is it a mere "feeling" about what we should or should not do. Rather, conscience is the voice of God resounding in the human heart, revealing the truth to us and calling us to do what is good while shunning what is evil. Conscience always requires serious attempts to make sound moral judgments based on the truths of our faith.”
Yes, a quote right out of the Faithful Citizenship document which Cardinal Burke blamed for handing Obama the election in 2008 and again in 2012. It’s another one of those “sounds good” but no cigar. A simple “you must vote against candidates who support abortion in anyway” is what is needed.
DeletePlus it says “The Church equips its members…” Really? I don’t recall a single attempt from the pulpit to “equip its members.” Instead we get this single letter that few will even know about a couple days before the election.
Here is the link to what Burke thought of this very harmful document.
https://1timothy315.blogspot.com/2011/09/the-usccb-vs-ppaca.html
Archbishop Raymond Burke, the prefect for the Apostolic Signatura, blamed the document “for the abandonment of pro-life teachings by voting Catholics.” He said the document “led to confusion” among the faithful and led ultimately to massive support among Catholics for “the most pro-abortion president in U.S. History.” The problem, the Archbishop pointed out, was that the document did not make the ”necessary distinctions” between abortion and other life issues such as war, capital punishment, and poverty.