Vatican official attacks U.S. Democrats as "party of death"! (JS ?????)

[Christians4LessGvt]

Vatican official attacks U.S. Democrats as "party of death"

October 1st, 2008



Vatican officials seldom single out political leaders who differ with the Church on issues like abortion rights or embryonic stem cell research. But now that the Vatican's highest court is led by an American, the former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, we can expect things to get more explicit in Vatican City at least when when it comes to U.S. politics.

Burke, who was named prefect of the Vatican's Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature in June, told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the U.S. Democratic Party risked "transforming itself definitively into a party of death for its decisions on bioethical issues." He then attacked two of the party's most high profile Catholics vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for misrepresenting Church teaching on abortion.

He said Biden and Pelosi, "while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have presented Church doctrine on abortion in a false and tendentious way."



Pelosi drew U.S. bishops' scorn for saying in a television interview last month that the Church itself had long debated when human life begins. Biden is a practicing Catholic who also supports abortion rights and analysts have said he could help woo wavering Catholics into Obama's fold. Both argue that they cannot impose their religious views on others.

Burke said pro-life Democrats were "rare" and that it saddened him that the party that helped "our immigrant parents and grandparents" prosper in America had changed so much over the years.

Burke made headlines as archbishop of St. Louis for his public attacks on public figures who strayed from Catholic teaching. He suggested during the 2004 presidential campaign that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a Catholic, should be denied communion because of his views on abortion. Several bishops said at the time they would not give him communion and the media staked out churches where he attended Mass to see if he received it.



"Lately, I've noticed that other bishops are coming to this position," Burke told Avvenire, which is owned by the Italian bishops' conference.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote a letter in 2004 to American bishops restating the Church position that a priest must refuse to distribute communion to a Catholic politician who supported abortion rights. But Burke lamented that the letter was never distributed.

Burke's criticism isn't limited to Democrats. Last year, he accused singer Sheryl Crow of being "a high profile proponent of the destruction of innocent lives" for defending a woman's right to have an abortion and for being a proponent of stem cell research. He resigned as head of a children's medical charity that featured the singer for a benefit concert.

Pope Benedict has been encouraging Catholic bishops to speak out more openly on public policy issues to make the Church's voice heard. Any bets on when we?ll hear from Burke next?

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/10/01/vatican-official-attacks-us-democrats-as-party-of-death/

[Michael Tee]

If I needed ANY proof of the total moral bankruptcy of the RCC and their manifest unfitness to serve as moral guides to any human being on this planet, I could find it in a "religion" whose representatives remained silent throughout the course of a totally unprovoked and unjustified war of naked greed and aggression, in which hundreds of thousands of real live human beings have been horribly murdered, but then would refer to the DEMOCRATS as the "Party of Death."

Let's give the RCC the benefit of the doubt on this one and assume that the Church itself does not officially support the views of this loudmouthed idiot, at least with respect to his slander of the Democratic Party.  The "Party of Death" is a good label, though.  Let's just make sure it's applied where it really belongs.

[Plane]

a "religion" whose representatives remained silent throughout the course of a totally unprovoked and unjustified war of naked greed and aggression, in which hundreds of thousands of real live human beings have been horribly murdered, but then would

Perhaps that was a learning experience that they don't want to repeat.

Were there no critics of the Natzis amoung the RCC?

Seems as if a few of them were willing to be loudmouthed idiots on that occasion.

[Michael Tee]

<<Were there no critics of the Natzis amoung the RCC?>>

Their record is mixed.  If you want to see what the good RCC were up to, read up on the Assissi Underground.  They were an amazing and heroic group. 

The pope, Pius XII, is a little more of a mixed bag.  The Wikipedia article on him tries to put him in the best possible light, but he hardly comes across as an anti-Nazi crusader.  The article does not mention that he celebrated a special Vatican mass for the success of the Nazi invasion of Russia.  He also saved the lives of hundreds of Roman Jews.  When my wife and I were in Rome, we visited the main synagogue there and met people who were personally saved by the Pope.  They knew his rep in North America as a Nazi collaborator and were really anxious to let us know their POV, obviously different than ours.  It reminded me of the Vichy French - - if you're gonna fuck the Jews, it's always smart to save a few, just in case things don't turn out as expected.  I'm not as bitter as I used to be about them but I'm not their biggest fan either.  After the war, a network operated from inside the Vatican itself to get fugitive Nazi war criminals out of Europe and into Paraguay and Argentina.  Even into Canada, Australia and the U.S.A.

<<Seems as if a few of them were willing to be loudmouthed idiots on that occasion.>>

Yeah that's true and some of them paid with their lives for it.  In Slovakia, an RCC priest headed a Nazi-aligned state which participated in the extermination of the Jews, and he paid for that with his life, too, after the war.

[Knutey]

Someone really gives a crap about what a RW nutcase priest thinks besides  Notme

[BT]

I could find it in a "religion" whose representatives remained silent throughout the course of a totally unprovoked and unjustified war of naked greed and aggression, in which hundreds of thousands of real live human beings have been horribly murdered, but then would refer to the DEMOCRATS as the "Party of Death."

It would be nice if you would google before you post. Save you the embarrrassment of constant correction.

Pope says Iraq war threatens humanity


Pope John Paul, in his first public comment on the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq, said on Saturday that the war threatens the whole of humanity, and that weapons could never solve mankind's problems.

"When war, like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is even more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that only peace is the way of building a more just and caring society," he said.

The Pope, in a speech to employees of Catholic television station Telepace, added: "Violence and weapons can never resolve the problems of man."

The Pope led the Vatican in a diplomatic campaign to avert war, putting the Holy See on a collision course with Washington and its backers in the Iraq campaign.

http://www.cathnews.com/news/303/124.php

[sirs]

D'oh

[fatman]

told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the U.S. Democratic Party risked "transforming itself definitively into a party of death

So, do you not know the meaning of the word risked, as opposed to flat out saying that the Vatican official proclaimed the Democrats as "The party of death"?  This is a political forum, not a cable news trailer, so let's go for just a little bit of accuracy, ok?   

It's ironic to see someone who has attacked the Church at least twice to my recollection over the sex abuse scandal, to turn around and use the Church to attack the candidate of the opposition party.  But when you lack any credibility whatsoever, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

And MT, Maximilian Kolbe was a true martyr of the Church, I realize that not all Catholics were of sterling virture in WWII, but he's one that really stands out in my mind as personifying the values of Christianity and the Church.

[Michael Tee]

<<It would be nice if you would google before you post. Save you the embarrrassment of constant correction. >>

Thanks, but you're talking to the wrong guy.  I don't find it embarrassing in the least to stand corrected, in fact I appreciate it very much.  We're all here to learn and that includes yours truly.  You seem to have this process confused with writing final exams, where the research has to be done before you put down your thoughts because you're shooting for the best mark you can get.  I'm not shooting for any mark here, I just express an opinion, and on the rare occasion when someone is able to correct me, well, that's a plus cuz I just learned something I didn't know before.

What WOULD be nice, however, would be if you gave just a half-minute's thought to the pathetic little gems you dig up in your research.  Those "GOTCHA!" gems that you think you found that turn out to be nothing but cheap coloured glass, fooling nobody at all, except of course Little Sir Echo.  The papal comment you just quoted, for example, is a perfect example of the Church's anodyne pacifistic crap, decrying the horrors of war (as even a fucking war criminal like George W. Bush can do) without a word of condemnation for the  anonymous perpetrators.  As opposed to specifically fingering the Democratic Party as "the Party of Death."  Well, I won't say that you disappointed me.

[BT]

Mikey,

Sorry I embarrassed you. But when you say the church didn't speak out against the war and anyone who has even a passing knowledge of current events knows the did, then sharing tha common knowedge with you seemed to be the right thing to do. I guess you don't get the same news coverage in Canada that we get in the States, even here in hillbilly country.

[Michael Tee]

BT, believe me, you did not embarrass me.  If you consider that bland and nondescript boilerplate condemnation of war and violence in the most general terms possible, naming no names and blaming no one to be "speaking out against the war," then I really feel sorry for you.  Even Bush "regrets the loss of life" etc.  Speaking out means speaking out, not mumbling into your chausuble.  The contrast between naming the Democratic Party as The Party of Death or even as in danger of becoming known as The Party of Death and the noncommittal ramblings that you dug up is like night and day. 

[BT]

See this is the problem Mikey. You did not state that the Church did not condemn the war to your liking. You said the church did not condemn the war. You said they remained silent. And that is simply not the case.

[Michael Tee]

I don't consider that a condemnation, BT.  It's just meaningless boiler-plate they have to say.  A condemnation NAMES the persons being condemned.  The Democratic Party, for example.  You know they are condemned because they are named in no uncertain terms.

How would you like a presiding judge at the end of a murder trial to issue a general condemnation of the act of murder without ever once naming the murderer?  That would be a joke and a travesty.  Like the Vatican's "condemnation" of the war in Iraq.

[BT]

Actually you statement was they remained silent. Spin that.

[Michael Tee]

<<Actually you statement was they remained silent. Spin that.>>

What's to spin?  Vis-a-vis the horrors of war, they condemned.  Vis-a-vis the criminals who waged the war, they remained silent.

The intention of the post was to contrast the silence of the RCC with regard to the war criminals with the eagerness to name and blame the Democrats as the "Party of Death" with regard to reproductive freedom.

Most readers were intelligent enough to catch my point.  Sorry if you didn't get it.  I don't intend to dumb down my writing to the level of a six year old, avoiding every single possibility of misunderstandings on points that 99% of the people reading it will get.  Sorry I don't have any more time to waste on your bullshit.