While it is understandable that John F. Kerry makes some church leaders uncomfortable, the source of that discomfort is political, not theological [“For Catholic Politicians, a Hard Line,” Outlook, April 11]. The bishops and the Vatican have limited legitimate canon law options for dealing with Catholics who disagree with church suggestions. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Pause. Read that last phrase again. Church suggestions!?????!<\/strong><\/p>\nBishop: I suggest you believe in the Fifth Commandment.<\/p>\n
Catholic: Nah.<\/p>\n
Bishop: Okay. Body of Christ.<\/p>\n
It is to the church’s credit that, to date, most bishops have followed church rules and not imposed official sanctions on politicians who disagree on the appropriate legal approach to abortion. They understand denying Communion is not just bad politics, as the column’s author, Charlotte Allen, pointed out, but bad theology. Catholics have right of access to sacraments under church law. How policymakers vote on controversial issues is not a matter of faith.<\/p>\n
Literally hundreds of Catholic elected officials, including almost half of the 145 Catholic members of Congress, are pro-choice. While they may personally accept church teachings on abortion, they also believe that non-Catholic Americans have a right to follow their religions’ teachings on abortion. Thus, they refuse to pass laws that would violate individual conscience. This is both good politics and good faith. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Notice how slimy and subtle this is. Kissling positions herself as the upholder of Vatican directives. What a piece of work.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Agrees with her! Oh, I guess not. While it is understandable that John F. Kerry makes some church leaders uncomfortable, the source of that discomfort is political, not theological [“For Catholic Politicians, a Hard Line,” Outlook, April 11]. The bishops and the Vatican have limited legitimate canon law options for dealing with Catholics who disagree…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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