Catholic League
There has been much attention placed on the Catholic Church due to a small group of bishops and individuals who advocate for or have ordered the refusal of Communion to politicians who vote for any type of procedures or laws that allow abortion. The latest controversy involves the most powerful political family in the United States of America, the Kennedy family. Bishop Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island has ordered the priests under his jurisdiction to refuse Communion to Representative Patrick Kennedy due to his stance on Abortion or Pro-Choice rights of women.
An organization called Catholic On line ran an article by a deacon called: Keith Fournier. He is also the founder of an organization called: "Catholic Way" but so far I have been only getting multiple broken links to the site so your guess is as good as mine on whether this organization exists at least on the web. Getting back to the subject, Deacon Fournier's article was an opinion piece that throughout the article railed against Chris Matthews for his shabby, dis-respectful treatment of Rhode Island bishop Thomas Tobin. Finally, at the end of the article the deacon declares: "Chris Matthews should be fired for his offensive and impolite Interview of Bishop Thomas Tobin. Then, he should sign up for the Right of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and learn the Catholic faith all over again."
This is only the latest in many salvos that Roman Catholic bishops and organizations affiliated with them having been firing at America's law makers and at Hollywood. Another controversial character, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League has just written an article through his organization critical of the national television morning program, "The View" http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1722. In addition, Mr. Donohue was the subject of a New York Post article: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/pee_ed_at_curb_GfyDEtcM8C0GsAin2TvxFJ#ixzz0XwwL6U3C in which he and his organization strongly criticize Larry David the comedian for a scene from his series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" http://www.hbo.com/larrydavid/ for showing a scene in which they feel that their religious views of Jesus Christ are desecrated. The New York Post article quotes Donohue as stating about Larry David that he should: "quit while he's ahead," and para-phrasing him as saying that David is all washed up.
There is also an organization of Catholic members: that does not criticize Representative Patrick Kennedy, Catholics For Choice, http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/ . They believe that the bishops and those other Catholics are only a small group that doesn't represent a lot of other catholics, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/23/tensions-flare-religious-leaders-lawmakers-abortion/ . Still, it seems that if it really is the case that only a small elite group of Catholic bishops and leaders are making all the noise, it doesn't appear that many other organizations like Catholic For Choice are getting noticed.
Of course, the story goes back to Mr. Donohue who also came out strongly against Chris Matthews believing that Matthews had insulted Bishop Tobin. Donohue went on say in this article critical things about Irish and liberal Catholics But, as shown in the previous article Mr. Donohue is not without controversy himself. Mediamatters.org has listed alleged controversial statements and stories made on the record by Mr. Donohue in an article in which they also state that Lou Dobbs liked Mr. Donohue and wanted to have him back on the show, http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200911050047 :
Previously:
Donohue refers to the "gay death style"
Catholic League president Donohue: "[P]eople don't trust the Muslims when it comes to liberty"
To this writer it would seem that if the Catholic Church and its affiliated organizations want to succeed in convincing their critics that they should be able to mix politics and religion there is at least one thing they need to do. Don't stand silently by or even in alliance with those who make controversial statements that appear to be anti-semitic or hateful in nature. Especially those who are leaders of organizations that are allied with them such as the Catholic League. These types of individuals only hurt their cause for mixing politics and religion because they are then believed to be rightly or wrongly religious extremists.
In today's world of religious extremism where our soldiers fight terrorists in far away countries, we should keep an eye on our own back yard, whether it's a minister who preaches hate by preaching for the death of our president or another American religious leader who rants against "the Jews". This might be why most of our founding fore-fathers abhored the mixing of official religion with secular politics.
Comments
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, criticized Chris Matthews, saying that Irish Catholics don't show enough respect for the Catholic church.
Donohue should read the report that came out just this week in Dublin, showing that the Catholic Church systematically provided institutional support for priests to rape children in Ireland for many decades. Then Donohue should rethink whether Irish Catholics owe some kind of reverent respect to the Catholic church.
The Catholic church (as an institution) has raped, molested and tortured the children of Ireland for many decades. The church deserves no donations, money, or respect, from the Irish. The church deserves vigorous and vocal condemnation by anyone with even a hint of ethics and morality.
Another exemplary Christian.
Bishop Tobin has not told any priest to refuse communion to Rep. Kennedy. He told Kennedy himself to refrain from Communion. Media hype one more time!
Mr. Clark should really try and get his facts straight. As previously mentioned, Bishop Tobin did not order any priests to withhold communion. He privately encouraged Rep. Kennedy to consider not receiving communion given his stance on abortion and this was done back in 2007.
I would not even dignify Peter Mahoney's comments that the Church as an institution "..raped, molested and tortured the children of Ireland for many decades" with a rebuttal.
In addition, should we mix politics and morality or ethics? That is what we are fighting for; not religion, but whether or not it is morally acceptable to condone the killing of innocent children through abortion. Under your reasoning, preachers speaking up against slavery or the holocaust should have remained silent out of fear of "mixing" religion and politics. It appears to me, many of our problems stem from NOT injecting ethics and morality in the political forum. How can one not speak up against injustice?
Mr. Mahoney's narrow condemnation of Catholic sins toward children, involving the tragic sexual abuse of children by a small percentage of priests over a 50 year period, misses the much larger context of a society in which abuse of children is pervasive and found everywhere, beginning with abortion. There is no way to diminish Catholic involvement in this great tragedy. Yet, the Catholic Church has been exemplary in coming clean and doing serious penance. Judged by the same standarfor instance, literally thousands of school districts around the country would go bankrupt if the full truth were to be revealed.
None of you guys seem particularly intelligent or informed about any of these issues. It's a long tradition in this country for the ancestors of Protestants who murdered Catholics to be anti-Catholic in new ways, since they can't hang us from trees with the Africans anymore.
And for you people who act as if priests are the only people who ever sinned...the American educational system and daycare system rape more children every year than any priests did in a hundred years. Why can't any of you deal with the fact that secular society creates the most rapists and molesters per capita and is in fact the thing that taints priests who wouldn't be so evil if they listened to their teachers at seminary rather than a broken secular culture.
The reason those other organizations have no support is because liberal catholics are selfish and don't give their time to causes "they believe in". REAL CATHOLIC LAYPEOPLE ARE WITH THE BISHOPS 100%!!!!
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