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Yes, a Boston cardinal might know something about scandal
By adamg on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 12:54pm
Paul Flannery wonders how a cardinal in Boston would chose the word "scandal" when talking about anything:
... Thanks to the Catholic Church's insensitive response to the priest sex abuse case here - which didn't just "border" on criminal - it's difficult to hear a high-ranking member of the Church employ the word "scandal" with no hint of irony. It's offensive, too. To Catholics (which I am) and non-Catholics alike. ...
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Comments
Borders on scandal
Scandal has a very specific meaning in the Catholic Church. Scandal is a specific kind of very serious sin. So, what the Cardinal is actually telling Catholics in his diocese is that merely voting for Democrats could well be (and -- in his opinion -- probably is) a grave sin.
For a more formal definition of scndal, see:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13506d.htm
A grave sin like raping a
A grave sin like raping a young boy?
The part of the statement
The part of the statement that jumped out at me was that abortion is "the most important moral issue facing policymakers" today - this with a war going on in Iraq, hunger and poverty worldwide, the sub-Saharan African AIDS pandemic, civil and human rights outrages in the Sudan and now Bhutan/Myanmar, these being just a few moral issues (some might say imperatives) facing our elected leaders... that the Democratic party supports a right to choose is what the appointed leader of a large congregation of Christians has identified as the most important moral issue.
That is outrageous.
death of innocents
For one thing, all the issues you mention are out of country. For another, look at what the Church has had to say about Iraq, Africa and Dafur and you'll see they have spoken out strongly about all of them.
Abortion involves the intentional and legal murder of innocents. Its not outrageous that he should identify that as a major concern (some might say imperative). It would be outrageous if he didn't.
Like in El Salvador?
There are plenty of women murdered each day in El Salvador because they can't be treated for tubal pregancies and doctors don't dare treat women with fatal pregancy complications even though their deaths mean the death of the cell clumps and embryos and feti they carry. That's because the Catholic Church and the government got together and enacted a program to ensure that any woman who may be pregnant gives birth or dies trying. They even prosecute women for miscarriages!
(shrugs). What's a few dead women who aren't virgins anyway? They are only mothers to other young children, caretakers of elders, etc. Who cares. Live is too sacred to save them![/dripping sarcasm]
What country are we refering to?
If you knew anything about Sean O'Malley you would know he has a deep concern for Latin America, but remember that we are talking about the Democratic Party of the US, not the DP of El Salvador here.
There is also a huge difference between the accidental death of a woman because she miscarries, and the intentional murder of a child. That said, I know far too little about the politics of foreign countries to comment intelligently about them. Your bringing it up (not to mention the needless sarcasm) only muddies the issue.
"Pro-life" is a joke when it kills women
Untreated tubal pregnancies kill. Pregnancy complications like ecclampsia kill. They kill even more women if doctors are prohibited from saving the life of the mother to protect the embryo or fetus - even though fetus or embryo dies without its host!
Catholic clergy lobbied for and wrote much of the Salvadoran (and now Nicaraguan) laws that are killing women because they prohibit timely medical treatment for pregnancy complications - let alone the fact that church interference in the affairs of state has made birth control inaccessible. So much for "pro life" policies of the Catholic Church.
NYT article on ElSalvador:
What kind of sin makes a woman deserve this? Huh? You say that you are a Christian - is TORTURE Christian? Is negligent medical care Christian?
Oh, but I'm sure you are salivating at the HOLINESS of such suffering!
And how, exactly, does a young woman who dies when denied life-saving medical care make your God happy? How does her young family try to survive afterward - by eating faith? What would Jesus do?
Who said I was Christian?
I never did. Not that it's any of your business, but I consider myself agnostic if you must know. You are going way beyond the bounds of what Cardinal O'Malley said. He never said women with problem pregnancies in South America should die because they sinned or that it would please God for that to happen. You are going so far beyond the scope of what he actually said that I hesitate to even respond, but I'll just say again that we are talking about the way a certain political party in this country has treated pro-life voters here, not what a DA in El Salvador told a doctor.
More on woman killing laws in Latin America
From the Washington Post, November 28, 2006:
Oh, but I'm sure that both mother and daughter died a most holy and sacred death!
Religious ideals are great for philosophy and individual life guidance, sure, but secular reality is much better for making laws.
And this is what we get for having supported the contras
Would the Sandinistas have let this happen? I doubt it.
recovering catholic to O'Malley
I'm a recovering catholic who had a near miss
with one of St. John's Seminary's finest back
in 1968. Then spent 30 or so years watching
a parade of unindicted co-conspirators cover
up decades of criminal conpiracy.
Sean O'Malley, shut the fuck up about my elected
officials being "extremely insensitive to the church's position."
When you call for the return of Bernie
"the Pimp" Law from his Roman sinecure to face
criminal charges then you can begin opening
your mealy mouth about morals and scandals.
Was the pedophile problem Cardinal O'Malley's fault?
Can O'Malley say nothing about church doctrine because of it? It was a poor choice of words, and I don't think many readers (myself included) would get the nuances of what "scandal" means in the Catholic lexicon. But it seems that O'Malley can't say anything about anything without the pedophile scandal being invoked. Was O'Malley responsible for the pedophile problem? Was it under his leadership? Has he ignored it? Did he continue to sweep it under the rug? No, no, no, and no.
The Cardinal didn't say voting for any Democratic candidate was a grave sin. He said that voting for Democratic candidates that support abortion was. The Church is clear about abortion,it is considered evil. If you want a religion that approves of abortion under any circumstances, there are dozens of them. But the Catholic Church isn't one of them, and O'Malley's job is to promote the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Promoting teachings and promoting a political party....
...are entirely different things -- little Miss Righteous.
It was not a poor choice of words. The Cardinal is well enough trained to know _exactly_ what he was saying.
What kind of Catholic education did you get if you did not learn about the sin of scandal?
The Republican party also supports many things that are contrary to Catholic doctrine. Saying Catholics sin if they vote for a Democrat who doesn't follow Catholic doctrine on one point is an inappropriate jump into partisan politics -- and could result in the diocese losing its tax free status.
I've been to Catholic High
I've been to Catholic High School, College and Graduate school and never learned of how scandal applies when used such as he did.
Thanks for your maturity in responding to the previous poster.
Oh, and for the record I have great dislike for Law, O'Malley, and most of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, so this isn't in defense of any of that.
That's funny
I learned this in high school.
I see no reason to be especially polite to self-righteous individuals like the one who names herself "Miss Kelly".
And I am very tired of their attempt to roll the Catholic Church back into the mid-1800s.
Based on my fifty or so years of experience with the church
The "mid-1800s" would actually be
a leap FORWARD of about 400 years.
It's still not that far away from
an organization that was selling papal
indulgences.
And to the question is O'Malley responsible
for fifty years rampant criminal conspiracy
here in Boston by his church, I can answer
it with a question:
Does anyone doubt that O'Malley would kneel and kiss
Bernie the Pimp's ring if the occasion presented
itself?
The ideology of the Catholic Church....
...was probably less advanced in 1860 than it was in 1460. The difference is that it had lost most of its direct political power. It made up for this by supporting aristocratic, authoritarian governments that made deals that gave the Church greater indirect power.
church's teaching
Yes, my online moniker is a little weird, but I've had it for a few years, why change now?
I didn't think I was being self-righteous, sorry.
These teachings about the sanctity of life don't go back 200 or 400 years, they go back about 2,000 years. Early Christians abolished the practice of leaving babies out to die or burying them alive. Girl babies especially were killed, much as they are in China and India today, where they are aborted at more than twice the rate of boys. This will make for some problematic demographics in a generation or so.
But by discouraging contraception
the Catholic Church pretty much guarantees that there will be more abortions.
He didn't say that
He didn't say Catholics sin if they vote for a Democrat, and he didn't praise the Republican Party either. In the 2nd paragraph of the story it is made clear O'Malley has "differences with the Republican Party over immigration policy, capital punishment, economic issues, and the war in Iraq, [but] he views abortion as the most important moral issue facing policymakers."
The last statement the bishops put out about this I think was a little more clear on what Catholic voters could and could not do in good conscience. They CAN vote for members of either party, even if that candidate opposes positions the Church supports, but they CAN'T vote for the candidate because of their opposition, and they have to have a compelling reason to vote for them in spite of the differences.
Utterly disingenuous
The Cardinal is a sharp man -- and takes care to tread (but not quite cross) the line into openly partisan politics.
Sacremental Taxes
He likes his tax exempt status. Telling his flock how to vote crosses that critical church/state separation line.
The Line
The line in the Constitution is a line on the government preventing them from establishing a religion. The Cardinal knows full well that the Mass Republican party is pro death, pro same sex marriage and pro cloning.
This was just a little reminder to the faithful that you cannot be pro baby murder and Roman Catholic.
Typo?
I assume you meant the Democratic Party is Satan's party on earth, not the God-fearing, righteous men of God who make up the Republican Party and its tireless efforts to put women back where they belong and strike the heathens dead. Because didn't Mitt Romney make sure to purge the local GOP of those godless sinners once he had his conversion to right thinking?
Fighting Abortion
It's an interesting little sophism to claim that the Democratic Party supports abortion. Nothing of the sort is true. Most representatives of the Democratic Party support a legal right to abortion, which is entirely different from supporting abortion. Women of all religions (yes, yours too) tend to have abortions at the same rate, and even making it illegal has little effect - it just sends abortions underground, which results in more, not less death from abortion, as mothers die in back-alley coathanger abortions.
If you think abortion is foul and immoral, and should be reduced, you'd be more effective in achieving those goals by voting Democratic - because the Democratic Party tends to support those things that reduce the frequency of abortion, such as birth control and sex education.
Claiming that opposing a woman's legal right to reproductive freedom reduces abortion is incorrect and specious. If you want to judge a tree by its fruits, look at the sharp decline in the abortion rate during the Clinton years, followed by a leveling off during the Bush years. There were 180,000 fewer abortions in Bill Clinton's last year as president than in his first year. The simple reason is that, during his presidency, more women had access to birth control.
I'll say it again: if you want to fight abortion, increase access to birth control and sex education. When you vote for "social conservatives" who pay lip service to making abortion illegal, you accomplish nothing except a relative increase in abortions.
Not so
It is true that the Democratic Party supports abortion, and they even go so far as to claim that anyone who doesn't is a Republican. Consider their platform: "We stand proudly for a woman's right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay. We stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine that right." They don't even allow for the existence of pro-life Democrats, or groups like www.DemocratsforLife.org
Now look at their 2000 platform on the issue:
The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party. This is why we are proud to put into our platform the very words which Republicans refused to let Bob Dole put into their 1996 platform and which they refused to even consider putting in their platform in 2000: “While the party remains steadfast in its commitment to advancing its historic principles and ideals, we also recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views on issues of personal conscience like abortion and capital punishment. We view this diversity of views as a source of strength, not as a sign of weakness, and we welcome into our ranks all Americans who may hold differing positions on these and other issues. Recognizing that tolerance is a virtue, we are committed to resolving our differences in a spirit of civility, hope and mutual respect.”
ps
I meant to say this in the original post: I think its this kind of attitude that says unless you are pro-choice we don't want you in our party that the Cardinal was getting at. If the party would at least open up a bit on this issue and be more friendly to pro-life Dems I think you wouldn't have this kind of statement from the Cardinal.
Not quite getting it, are you?
I'll try to spell it out more clearly.
Supporting woman's right to choose =/= increasing number of abortions.
Restricting access to contraception = increasing number of abortions.
Did that come across yet?
The problem that many "social conservatives" have is that, by fighting a rhetorical battle they work against their imagined goals. When you vote in a politician who promises (and yet cannot deliver) a ban on abortions in the US, but who actually only works to limit access to contraception and sex education, the result of your vote is to increase the number of abortions.
I don't know if it's simple enough yet. How about this?
The Republican Party is the party of More Abortions.
They might not talk that way, but that's the actual result of their preferred legislation.
Kook
Gareth, your talkin the crazy talk now. Is there an open gas line in your house? Have you been fiberglassing your boat without a mask? Birth control?! Sex education - crazy talk. The Catholic Church certainly can't support a party that would support these things any more than it could abbortion. I mean, God forbid someone take birth control. In fact, God does forbid it according to the church! STD's? - just punishment for sinners. Poverty and overpopulation...sinners, God's chosen, you pick it. Victim of rape, incest? God's plan, He'll punish them, just accept it. You need to get back to the basics of sex here Gareth: sex is only appropriate for the purpose of creating more children to be raised Catholic. If you are having sex for pleasure its just a sin. Sin, sin, sin. Just for writing sex in this post I'm going to have to use one of my indulgences. Fortunately, I can afford to purchase many. Perhaps that's how the Republican party (not my peeps to be clear) gets its repreive/support from his eminence even though it supports the death penalty (sin) and would like to throw poor (God's choice) imigrants into the ocean when they are not picking fruit. Wink, wink - Zing.
No so, Sarcasmo
You clearly don't know what the Church actually teaches about sex. There are many purposes to sex: pleasure, an expression of love, to unite the couple more closely, and yes, to procreate. If the sex were forced, or unpleasurable, or not being used to express love it would be just as sinful as sex that isn't open to the possibility of creating new life.
I'm not Catholic. However,
from what I understand, some 80% of married/single Catholics use some form of birth control, and the majority of Catholic women do are pro-choice.
Numbers, shnumbers
Good thing the Church is not a democracy, she is a monarchy and Christ is her King. Also, the Church is not a 4 star hotel for the saved ... she's a hospital for sinners.
Who gives a rat's ass what he goes on about?
The remaining faithful sheeple? They’re too busy trying to keep their empty buildings open and figuring out how to make do with too few
freakspriests.Can’t be the voters of this “Catholic” state, cause they stopped listening years ago. They already vote their ethics, not what comes down from Emperor Palpatine in Rome.
Can’t be the ‘power brokers’, ‘cause they figured out awhile ago aside from some nice-nice lip service the RC’ers couldn’t deliver.
So in between stories of car crashes, genetic engineering, and the latest pop-star tragedies the Cardinal gets an article, with less coverage then the least important Red Sox player could garner by accident.
Bet it didn’t sell a single extra newspaper.
Who cares?
Maybe them colored folks do. How about them Heebs, what do you say Adam? Do they care? Or the Spics or the Chinks? I think maybe the
savagesredmen might. What about you, Michael Maggot? You don't care but maybe I could insult your ethnic group or religion, and how would you like that? What makes you think you can insult someone's religion like that? I don't think you would ever dare to write a comment titled "Who gives a rat's ass what nigger goes on about?" so why would you write one insulting Catholics? A little tolerance goes a long way in getting your message across.